Xanthogranulomatous inflammation caused by K. pneumonia and nocardiosis mimicking a uterine tumor and invading the ureter and colon: A case report and review of the literature.

OBJECTIVE: To present a rare case of xanthogranulomatous inflammation (XI) mimicking a uterine sarcoma and invading the ureter and colon. CASE REPORT: A 66-year-old woman presented with lower abdominal pain. Pelvic examination showed tenderness over the lower abdominal region without cervical discharge. Per-rectal examination showed a hard tumor on the posterior uterine wall, while ultrasonography showed a tumor-like mass extending from the posterior uterine wall to the rectum. Magnetic resonance imaging showed signs of endometrial cancer invading the rectum. However, the tumor markers carbohydrate antigen (CA) 125, CA199, and carcinoembryonic antigen were in the normal range. Cystoscopy, panendoscopy, and colonoscopy showed no significant findings. On performing exploratory laparotomy, we observed pus and severe adhesion on the posterior uterine wall and rectum. Hysterectomy, bilateral adnexectomy, colectomy, and partial left ureter resection were performed. The final pathology showed XI. The pus culture revealed Klebsiella pneumonia and PCR revealed nocardiosis. The patient received 2 weeks of antibiotic treatment and was discharged thereafter. CONCLUSION: XI in elderly women is rare, and hence, differential diagnoses should be carefully considered.

Untargeted metabolomics predicts the functional outcome of ischemic stroke.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Metabolites in blood have been found associated with the occurrence of vascular diseases, but its role in the functional recovery of stroke is unclear. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the untargeted metabolomics at the acute stage of ischemic stroke is able to predict functional recovery. METHODS: One hundred and fifty patients with acute ischemic stroke were recruited and followed up for 3 months. Fasting blood samples within 7 days of stroke were obtained, liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry were applied to identify outcome-associated metabolites. The patients' clinical characteristics and identified metabolites were included for constructing the outcome prediction model using machine learning approaches. RESULTS: By using multivariate analysis, 220 differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) were discovered between patients with favorable outcomes (modified Rankin Scale, mRS ≤ 2 at 3 months, n = 77) and unfavorable outcomes (mRS ≥ 3 at 3 months, n = 73). After feature selection, 63 DEMs were chosen for constructing the outcome prediction model. The predictive accuracy was below 0.65 when including patients' clinical characteristics, and could reach 0.80 when including patients' clinical characteristics and 63 selected DEMs. The functional enrichment analysis identified platelet activating factor (PAF) as the strongest outcome-associated metabolite, which involved in proinflammatory mediators release, arachidonic acid metabolism, eosinophil degranulation, and production of reactive oxygen species. CONCLUSION: Metabolomics is a potential method to explore the blood biomarkers of acute ischemic stroke. The patients with unfavorable outcomes had a lower PAF level compared to those with favorable outcomes.

Microbiota Dysbiosis in Fungal Rhinosinusitis.

Fungal rhinosinusitis is a unique phenotype of chronic rhinosinusitis with unique clinical and histological characteristics. The role of bacterial microbiota in various phenotypes chronic rhinosinusitis is not thoroughly understood. Therefore, we conducted 16s rRNA amplification sequencing to determine differences in bacterial communities between phenotypes (fungal vs. non- fungal) and anatomical sites (middle meatus vs. nasopharynx). Endoscope-guided swabs were used to collect samples from the middle meatus and nasopharynx of seven consecutive patients with fungal and 18 consecutive patients with non-fungal rhinosinusitis. DNA was extracted and investigated through 16S rRNA amplification. Among samples from the middle meatus, Shannon diversity was significantly lower in those from the fungal rhinosinusitis group (p = 0.029). However, no significant differences in diversity were noted between nasopharynx samples (p = 0.85). Fungal rhinosinusitis samples exhibited a distinct distribution of taxon relative abundance, which involved not only the absence of rhinosinusitis-associated commensal Corynebacterium and Fusobacterium in the middle meatus but also a significant increase in Haemophilus prevalence and abundance. This is the first study to compare bacterial communities in fungal and non-fungal rhinosinusitis samples. Our findings demonstrated that bacterial community dysbiosis was more apparent in fungal rhinosinusitis samples and was limited to the middle meatus.