ABSTRACT
Abdominal apoplexy or idiopathic spontaneous intraperitoneal haemorrhage is defined as the presence of free blood within the peritoneal cavity. Non-traumatic and non-iatrogenic causes may cause abdominal apoplexy. It has a variable clinical presentation, with abdominal pain being an early and non-specific symptom. We report a rare case of a 23-year-old male with abdominal apoplexy because of rupture of the short gastric artery. He presented to our department with abdominal pain. Later, he developed signs of shock, and was found to have haemoperitoneum on laparotomy. We ligated the short gastric artery, which was the bleeding source, and he had an uneventful postoperative course. We also review the literature on existing cases of short gastric vessel rupture.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To investigate the cortical mechanisms that prevent diplopia in intermittent exotropia (X(T)) during binocular alignment (orthotropia). METHODS: The authors studied 12 X(T) patients aged 5 to 22 years. Seventy-five percent had functional stereo vision with stereoacuity similar to that of 12 age-matched controls (0.2-3.7 min arc). Identical face images were presented to the two eyes for 400 ms. In one eye, the face was presented at the fovea; in the other, offset along the horizontal axis with up to 12° eccentricity. The task was to indicate whether one or two faces were perceived. RESULTS: All X(T) patients showed normal diplopia when the nonfoveal face was presented to nasal hemiretina, though with a slightly larger fusional range than age-matched controls. However, 10 of 12 patients never experienced diplopia when the nonfoveal face was presented to temporal hemiretina (i.e., when the stimulus simulated exodeviation). Patients showed considerable variability when the single image was perceived. Some patients suppressed the temporal stimulus regardless of which eye viewed it, whereas others suppressed a particular eye even when it viewed the foveal stimulus. In two patients, the simulated exodeviation might have triggered a shift from normal to anomalous retinal correspondence. CONCLUSIONS: Antidiplopic mechanisms in X(T) can be reliably triggered by purely retinal information during orthotropia, but the nature of these mechanisms varies between patients.
