Diagnostic value of a power Doppler ultrasound-based malignancy index for differentiating malignant and benign solid breast lesions.

BACKGROUND: Power Doppler ultrasound (PDUS) can provide useful information regarding the vascularity of breast lesions. The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic performance of a new PDUS-driven malignancy index in differentiating between malignant and benign causes of solid breast lesions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients with solid breast lesions were enrolled consecutively and evaluated first by PDUS and subsequently by histopathologic assessment after undergoing surgical biopsy. A custom-made software was used to extract data from images for calculating malignancy index formula. RESULTS: A total of 87 patients with solid breast lesions were enrolled. Histopathologic evaluation identified 49 patients as benign and 38 patients as malignant. Malignancy index was significantly higher in the malignant group as compared to benign tumors (6.31 vs 0.30,P < 0.001). Area under the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve (AUC) was 0.98 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.95-1.00). According to the ROC curve analysis, the cut-off point of 1.23 for malignancy index had a sensitivity and specificity of 94.7% (95% CI 82.2-99.3) and 94.0% (95% CI 83.1-98.7), respectively. CONCLUSION: Comparing with the histopathologic evaluation as the gold standard for diagnosing breast lesions, PDUS-driven malignancy index was shown to have a high discriminative performance in identifying malignant lesions with high sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy. The noninvasive nature of PDUS is an important advantage that could prevent unnecessary biopsies.

Repeated small bowel resection in a patient with Buerger's disease and intestinal involvement.

Buerger's disease, also called thromboangiitis obliterans, is a recurrent and an uncommon vaso-occlusive inflammatory disease, which typically affects small and medium-sized arteries, veins and nerves of the upper and lower extremities. Mesenteric and multisystem involvement of two or more organs is extremely rare. Here we report the case of a 39-year-old male heavy smoker who had undergone four repetitive laparotomies and multiple small bowel resections for ischaemic involvement of Buerger's disease. He had below-the-knee amputation of the right leg and finger of the left hand because of that disease before bowel involvement. Histopathological findings revealed that the arteries and veins of the resected small intestine were occluded with organised thrombi. Inflammatory cell infiltration was recognised mainly in the intima of distal branches of mesenteric artery. These findings were compatible with previous findings in histopathological examinations of amputated extremities.

Compartment Syndrome of the Calf Due to Nicolau Syndrome.

We report a case of Nicolau syndrome in a 15 months old girl following an intramuscular injection of penicillin 6.3.3 in her left buttock. This case is unique because she developed compartment syndrome in her left calf far from her injection site. Her toe's tips gangrened in the course of her ailment. We hypothesized that the compartment syndrome might be produced by a probable intra-arterial injection that had produced embolic obstruction of the small and medium size arteries in her leg or a probable perineural or periarteial injection had produced secondary sympathetic stimulation, extensive vasospasm, compromised microcirculation and the development of compartment syndrome.

Schwannoma of stomach.

Gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumours are a group of tumours originating from the mesenchymal stem cells of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Digestive tract Schwannomas are rare mesenchymal tumours occurring most frequently in the stomach. We report the case of a 40-year-old woman with gastric Schwannoma located at the posterior wall of the antrum.