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The article describes a study that explores the use of salivary cortisol to measure adrenal steroid concentration in premature infants as a non-invasive technique for evaluating neonatal stress function. It reveals that a direct correlation was found between salivary and cord blood cortisol values in the 102 paired samples collected from the 51 infants involved in the study. It also observed lower levels of mean salivary cortisol (though not blood plasma cortisol) in infants whose mothers were treated with antenatal steroids.

The article examines whether genetic variation in the rs314280 on 6q21 (near the height-related gene LIN28B) and rs2090409 on 9q31.2 (in an intergenic region) could serve as useful markers for predicting susceptibility to precocious puberty in a population of 117 Taiwanese girls. It reports that rs314280 and rs2090409 polymorphisms are not reliable predictors for the timing of puberty since the genotype proportions and allele frequencies for the two loci were not significantly different between the control group and the girls with precocious puberty.