ABSTRACT
Whipple's disease (WD) is caused by Tropheryma whipplei, frequently found in lamina propria's macrophages in the small intestine. It is a rare and chronic systemic infection, and the principal clinical manifestations are diarrhea, weight loss, abdominal pain, and arthralgia. The diagnosis is difficult mainly because of its rarity and should be considered in patients with arthralgias, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and weight loss after more common conditions have been excluded. The laboratory diagnosis is established by a duodenal biopsy. The treatment involves 14 days of intravenous antibiotics with good penetration in the cerebrospinal fluid (i.e., ceftriaxone) and one-year treatment with oral co-trimoxazole. Early diagnosis and proper treatment are crucial because it improves the prognosis. We report the case of a 58-year-old female with skin hyperpigmentation, loss of appetite and weight (16% of body weight in three months), nausea, upper abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy and colonoscopy were performed to obtain biopsy samples, which, together with laboratory tests and microbiological studies, led to a diagnosis of Whipple's disease.
ABSTRACT
Ovarian cancer is more frequent in post-menopausal women, however it can also occur in young premenopausal women. After diagnosis and cancer staging, health care providers should address the possibility of infertility and might offer fertility preservation options. Chemotherapy, frequently used when treating ovarian cancer, has proven to cause extensive ovarian damage. Standard surgery may be aggressive and the recurrence risk may not be relevant enough to opt for these approaches. Fertility sparing surgery has been progressively accepted and many alternative surgical approaches have proven to be successful in both cancer treatment, fertility preservation and low recurrence rates. Though there are several techniques available for fertility preservation in cancer patients, when dealing with ovarian cancer patients, oocyte and embryo cryopreservation are the only suitable. Ovarian tissue cryopreservation has been largely studied, but no data on ovarian cancer patients exist, due to the risk of reimplanting cancer cells.
