Case of Renal Aspergillosis after Heart Transplant: Diagnosis and Treatment.

Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is a severe complication after heart transplantation (HTx), with a high mortality rate. Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) is the most common presentation. We herein describe a unique case of Renal aspergillosis (RAsp) diagnosed on month 10 post-HTx with no known risk factors for IPA in cardiac transplant recipients. The diagnosis of RAsp was made based on radiographic findings, renal biopsy, and tissue cultures. The patient initially received combined antifungal therapy (caspofungin and voriconazole) without radical or partial nephrectomy, followed by voriconazole maintenance monotherapy with favorable clinical outcomes.

Elastic wave propagation in smooth and wrinkled stratified polymer films.

Periodic materials with sub-micrometer characteristic length scale can provide means for control of propagation of hypersonic phonons. In addition to propagation stopbands for the acoustic phonons, distinct dispersive modes can reveal specific thermal and mechanical behavior under confinement. Here, we employ both experimental and theoretical methods to characterize the phonon dispersion relation (frequency versus wave vector). We employed Brillouin light scattering (BLS) spectroscopy to record the phonon dispersion in stratified multilayer polymer films. These films consist of 4-128 alternate polycarbonate (PC) and poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) layers along and normal to the periodicity direction. The distinct direction-dependent phonon propagation was theoretically accounted for, by considering the polarization, frequency and intensity of the observed modes in the BLS spectra. Layer-guiding was also supported by the glass transition temperatures of the PC and PMMA layers. The number of phonon dispersion branches increased with the number of layers but only a few branches were observable by BLS. Introduction of an additional in-plane periodicity, through a permanent wrinkling of the smooth PC/PMMA films, had only subtle consequences in the phonon propagation. Using the frequencies of the periodicity induced modes and momentum conservation equation we were able to precisely back calculate the wrinkle periodicity. However, a wrinkling-induced acoustic stopband utilizing flexible layered materials is still a challenge.