A Rare Case of Mediastinal Mass: Thymoma and Thymic Tumor.

Thymomas and thymic carcinomas are rare mediastinal neoplasms arising from thymic epithelial cells, and the presence of synchronous or metachronous primary thymic neoplasms in a single patient is an extremely rare event. Thymoma patients appear to have an inherent predisposition toward developing additional neoplasms. This additionally presents a diagnostic challenge, revealing the importance of multidisciplinary expertise to the management of these patients. This is a case report of a patient with a thymoma and thymic carcinoma, submitted to surgical resection and postoperative radiotherapy.

Characteristics and outcomes of heart failure hospitalization before implementation of a heart failure clinic: The PRECIC study.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to characterize patients hospitalized for acute heart failure (HF) in an internal medicine department and their one-year mortality and rate of rehospitalization for decompensated HF. METHODS: This retrospective observational study enrolled all patients discharged in 2012 after hospitalization for acute HF. Discharge summaries, clinical records and telephone interviews were analysed. The data reports to the year before implementation of a heart failure clinic. RESULTS: Four hundred and twenty-nine patients were enrolled, with a mean age of 79 years, 62.5% female. The most prevalent comorbidity and etiology was hypertension (86.7%) and the most frequent decompensation trigger was infection. HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) was present in 70.5%. In-hospital mortality was 7.9%. At discharge more than half of the patients were prescribed beta-blockers (52.8%) and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (52%). Women presented a significantly higher proportion of HFpEF than men (75.3% vs. 62.7%, p=0.01). Patients with diabetes and those with ischemic etiology had significantly higher proportions of HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) (34.8% vs. 24.3% in non-diabetic patients, p=0.027, and 56.2% vs. 15.6% for other etiologies, p<0.001). The HFrEF group were more frequently discharged under beta-blockers and spironolactone (75.2% vs. 46.4% in the HFpEF group, p<0.001 and 31.2% vs. 12.6% in the HFpEF group, p<0.001, respectively). Mortality was 34.3% and rehospitalization for HF was 30.5% in one-year follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: The population characterized is an elderly one, mainly female and with HFpEF. Nearly a third of patients died and/or were rehospitalized in the year following discharge.