Thoracoscopic and endovascular management of retained haemothoarx associated with an intercostal artery pseudoaneurysm.

Intercostal artery pseudoaneurysm (IAP) is a rare entity and may complicate a percutaneous intervention through an intercostal space or follow thoracic trauma. Its rupture into the pleural space can give rise to haemothorax, which if untreated may lead to a retained haemothorax (RH). Traditionally both the IAP and the RH are managed by a thoracotomy. We report a patient who developed an IAP with haemothorax following a trauma. The diagnosis was established by computed tomography. The patient was treated by endovascular embolisation of the IAP followed by thoracoscopic decortications of the RH.

A comparitive study on iodination of normal and diabetic serum.

It is a well known fact that iodine is a very important trace element for normal growth and metabolism. Iodination of biomolecules has many important functions in the field of research, assay procedures, investigation and diagnosis of diseases. The present study is done to compare the iodine uptake by the serum of diabetes mellitus cases and healthy controls. Methods: The study was carried out on 50 cases of known diabetes mellitus with mean fasting blood glucose level of 324 mg/dl and 25 healthy controls with mean fasting blood glucose level of 78 mg/dl. The modified version of the colorimetric method was employed for the assay of iodine uptake. The data’s were analyzed using SPSS version 10. Results: Serum total iodine uptake was decreased significantly in cases as compared to healthy controls (p <0.01). Conclusion: The results of our study indicate that there is decreased iodine uptake by diabetic serum. The cause for decreased iodine uptake may be related to high blood sugar level which possibly may be causing some alteration in the structure of biomolecules by glycation leading to decrease in the binding sites of iodine.