A rare case presentation of a perforated giant sigmoid diverticulum.

Giant sigmoid diverticulum (GSD) is a rare complication of diverticulosis. These lesions arise from herniations of the mucosa through the muscle wall which progressively enlarge with colonic gas to become large air-filled cysts evident on plain X-ray and CT scans. We present a rare case of a 72-year-old female presenting with abdominal distention, abdominal tenderness, and fever who developed a type 1 giant sigmoid diverticulum (pseudodiverticulum) that subsequently formed an intra-abdominal abscess and an accompanying type 2 diverticulum as well. The patient was treated with surgical resection of the diverticulum with a primary anastomosis and abscess drainage. The patient's postoperative course was uneventful. This case helps to support the need for the consideration of GSD in patients aged 60 and older with a history of diverticulosis and presenting with abdominal discomfort and distension.

CT scanning in the evaluation of pulmonary hypertension.

BACKGROUND: Right-heart catheterization is currently the gold standard method for detecting pulmonary hypertension (PH) and grading its severity. Our study determined the utility of computerized tomography (CT) scans for detecting PH in patients with left-sided heart disease, thereby potentially avoiding the overuse of invasive right-heart catheterization. METHODS: A retrospective review was conducted on 40 patients with left-sided cardiac pathology who had undergone both right-heart catheterization and CT scanning of the chest. Mean pulmonary artery diameters (MPADs) were measured on CT scans and compared with pulmonary artery pressures measured by right-heart catheterization. RESULTS: Patients with mild-to-moderate PH had significantly greater CT-measured MPADs (34.89 ± 1.01) than patients without PH (controls) (27.36 ± 0.83, p < 0.001). Patients with severe PH had significantly greater MPADs (38.31 ± 0.88) than both mild-to-moderate PH patients (p < 0.01) and controls (p < 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that CT scanning predicted PH with an area under the curve of 0.95 (p < 0.0001). A cutoff MPAD of >33.3 mm had 100% specificity and 100% positive predictive value (N = 40, p < 0.0001), and a cutoff MPAD of <27.3 mm had 100% sensitivity with 100% negative predictive value (N = 40, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: CT scanning correctly identified all patients with PH with MPADs >34 mm and excluded all patients without PH when MPADs were <27 mm. We advocate that the measurement of MPAD by CT scanning can be quickly and easily performed by the clinician to screen for the presence of PH.

Postpneumonectomy-like syndrome presenting in a patient with treated pulmonary tuberculosis: a case report.

INTRODUCTION: Postpneumonectomy syndrome is a rare condition that is characterized by dyspnea resulting from an extreme mediastinal shift and bronchial compression of the residual lung following surgical pneumonectomy. It is even rarer for this syndrome to present in patients without a history of prior lung surgery but induced by autopneumonectomy due to parenchymal disease, an entity termed 'postpneumonectomy-like syndrome'. CASE PRESENTATION: We present a rare case of a 91-year-old Puerto Rican man presenting with progressively worsening dyspnea with a history of pulmonary tuberculosis diagnosed 40 years earlier who developed severe unilateral lung fibrosis. Plain X-ray and computed tomography scans confirmed the presence of postpneumonectomy-like syndrome secondary to his parenchymal lung destruction. The patient developed cor pulmonale due to his extensive lung disease and as a consequence was not a suitable candidate for surgical intervention. The patient was otherwise stable until he developed acute respiratory distress from an acute upper gastrointestinal bleed and died four days into his hospital course. CONCLUSION: We present a rare case of postpneumonectomy-like syndrome as sequelae of severe pulmonary parenchymal tuberculosis infection along with a review of literature, in the hopes of aiding clinicians to include the differential of postpneumonectomy-like syndrome in patients presenting with worsening dyspnea without a history of surgical lung resection.

Foreign body aspiration presenting with asthma-like symptoms.

Aspiration of a foreign body into the tracheobronchial tree is rare in adults. In the majority of these cases there is an underlying condition such as mental retardation, depressed mental status, impairment in the swallowing reflex, neurological impairment, alcohol or sedative abuse, or complications from dental manipulations that contributed to the aspiration. These patients are commonly misdiagnosed with asthma and typically do not respond to mainstay anti-inflammatory and/or bronchodilator therapy. We describe the case of a patient with a foreign body aspiration in the upper trachea not recognized by radiographic studies that presented with asthma-type symptoms.

Pleural Empyema due to Group D Salmonella.

Non-typhi Salmonella normally presents as a bacteremia, enterocolitis, and endovascular infection but rarely manifests as pleuropulmonary disease. We present a case of a 66-year-old female with underlying pulmonary pathology, secondary to an extensive smoking history, who presented with a left-sided pleural effusion. The causative agent was identified as being group D Salmonella. Decortication of the lung was performed and the patient was discharged on antibiotics with resolution of her symptoms. This case helps to support the inclusion of Salmonella group D as a possible etiological agent of infection in the differential causes of exudative pleural effusions.

Fuel use during glycogenesis in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss Walbaum) white muscle studied in vitro.

The purpose of this study was to examine fuel used during muscle glycogenesis in rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss using an in vitro muscle slice preparation to test the hypothesis that intracellular lactate is the major glycogenic substrate and the muscle relies upon extracellular substrates for oxidation. Fish were exhaustively exercised to reduce muscle glycogen content, muscle slices were taken from exhausted fish and incubated for 1 h in medium containing various substrates at physiological concentrations. 14C-labeled lactate, glycerol or palmitate was added and 14C incorporation into muscle glycogen and/or CO2 was measured. Lactate clearance in the absence of net glycogenesis suggests that when suitable oxidizable extracellular substrates were lacking, intracellular lactate was oxidized. Only muscle incubated in lactate, glycerol or palmitate synthesized glycogen, with the greatest synthesis in muscle incubated in lactate plus glycerol. The major fate of these extracellular substrates was oxidative, with lactate oxidized at rates 10 times that of palmitate and 100 times that of glycerol. Neither extracellular lactate nor glycerol contributed significantly to glycogenesis, with lactate carbon contributing less than 0.1% of the total glycogen synthesized, and glycerol less than 0.01%. There was 100 times more extracellular lactate-carbon incorporated into CO2 than into glycogen. In the presence of extracellular lactate, palmitate or glycerol, intracellular lactate was spared an oxidative fate, allowing it to serve as the primary substrate for in situ glycogenesis, with oxidation of extracellular substrates driving ATP synthesis. The primary fate of extracellular lactate is clearly oxidative, while that of intracellular, glycolytically derived lactate is glycogenic, which suggests intracellular compartmentation of lactate metabolism.