Blastomycosis Endocarditis: Case Report and Literature Review.

We report successful treatment of a case of disseminated blastomycosis originating in the right lung, with involvement of the right pleural space, multiple ribs and vertebral bodies, and the pericardium and mitral valve endocarditis. The 22-year-old patient presented with a 13-month history of right lower lobe pneumonia associated with fevers, night sweats, rib pain, and 27-kg weight loss. Pathology examination revealed Blastomyces from multiple biopsies of inflammatory masses in the right thorax. After a 4-week induction with liposomal amphotericin followed by oral itraconazole, the patient had complete resolution of the clinical and laboratory findings of blastomycosis.

Treatment Failure in Patient with Severe Mpox and Untreated HIV, Maryland, USA.

A 33-year-old man in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, with untreated HIV infection had a 74-day course of mpox with multiorgan system involvement and unique clinical findings. In this clinical experience combining 3 novel therapeutic regimens, this patient died from severe mpox in the context of untreated HIV and advanced immunodeficiency.

Understanding flow dynamics, viability and metastatic potency of cervical cancer (HeLa) cells through constricted microchannel.

To understand the burgeoning challenges of metastasis, a microchannel of 35 µm diameter, constricted to 7 µm for a distance of 200 µm in a total length of 3 mm, was designed and fabricated using a mask aligner made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to mimic in vivo capillaries. A thin glass cover-slide was mounted on top to monitor the motion of single or aggregated malignant HeLa cells (size 17-30 µm) microscopically through the constricted microchannel at a constant flow rate of 30 µl/h. Quantitative deconvolution of high-speed videographs of a single cell of 30 µm revealed cellular deformation while passing through constriction, having elongation index, average transit velocity and entry time of 2.67, 18 mm/s and 5.1 ms, respectively. Morphological analysis of live and apoptotic cells by dual staining with Acridine Orange/Ethidium Bromide demonstrated retention of a significant viable cell population after exit through the constriction and a viability index of 50% was quantified by dye exclusion assay. The cumulative data for microfluidic parameters, morphology and relevant metastatic MMP2 gene expression efficiency measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed retention of virulence potency that could possibly cause metastasis, would be beneficial in developing futuristic MEMS device for cancer theranostics.

Seoul virus infection in a Wisconsin patient with recent travel to China, March 2009: first documented case in the Midwestern United States.

Diagnosis of Seoul virus-associated hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) cases among United States residents is rare. We describe confirmation of a Seoul virus infection in a 36-year-old scientist who worked with laboratory rats in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but most likely acquired the infection during a trip to Shenyang, China.