Familial myelodysplastic syndrome occurring at a young age is a very rare childhood haematological malignancy. Two siblings, aged three and 18 years, from a consanguineous marriage, presented with pancytopenia and was subsequently diagnosed to have myelodysplastic syndrome. Both remained clinically stable throughout the illness. Splenectomy appeared to have fully corrected the cytopenia in one of them.
Transcatheter closure of small and moderate sizes of Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) is a standard and well accepted form of treatment. The aim of this study is to describe the experience of transcatheter closure of PDA in Penang Hospital. All patients who underwent transcatheter closure of PDA at our institution between 20th January 2006 and 27th June 2008 were retrospectively identified and studied. There were a total of 66 patients who had undergone transcatheter closure of PDA during this period which comprised of 24 male and 42 female. The PDA was closed by Amplatzer Duct Occluder (ADO) in 31 patients, Gianturco coil in 29 patients and other types of devices in 6 patients. There were 4 patients (6%) who had developed acute complication during the procedure (3 of them developed coil embolization and 1 had bleeding from puncture site). The PDA was successfully close in 95.5% of the study population without any residual PDA shunting. All the patients were alive but 5 of them (4.5%) have some abnormalities (2 has mild left pulmonary stenosis, 3 has small residual). Comparison between ADO and Gianturco coil revealed no significant difference in the outcome. Transcatheter closure of PDA has proven to be safe and effective with good midterm outcome. There was no significant difference between Amplatzer Ductal Occluder and Gianturco coil in term of the outcome.