Medicine
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Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a relapsing disease. However, the nature, chronology, therapeutic impact, and clinical consequences of relapses have been scarcely addressed. We conducted the present study to investigate the prevalence, timing, and characteristics of relapses in patients with GCA and to analyze whether a relapsing course is associated with disease-related complications, increased glucocorticoid (GC) doses, and GC-related adverse effects. ⋯ Cumulated prednisone dose during the first year was significantly higher in relapsing patients (6.2 ± 1.7 g vs 5.4 ± 0.78 g, p = 0.015). Osteoporosis was more common in patients with relapses compared to those without (65% vs 32%, p = 0.001). In conclusion, the results of the present study provide evidence that a relapsing course is associated with higher and prolonged GC requirements and a higher frequency of osteoporosis in GCA.
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The aim of the study was to describe the imaging findings of Askin tumors on computed tomography (CT) and fluorine 18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET/CT). Seventeen cases of Askin tumors confirmed by histopathology were retrospectively analyzed in terms of CT (17 cases) and FDG-PET/CT data (6 cases). Fifteen of the tumors were located in the chest wall and the other 2 were in the anterior middle mediastinum. ⋯ At follow-up, 12 cases showed recurrence and/or metastases, 4 cases showed improvement or remained stable, and 1 was lost to follow-up. In summary, CT and FDG-PET/CT images of Askin tumors showed heterogeneous soft tissue masses in the chest wall and the mediastinum, accompanied by rib destruction, pleural effusion, and increased FDG uptake. CT and FDG-PET/CT imaging play important roles in the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with Askin tumors.
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Cardiac transplantation (CT) has been one of the great medical advances of the last nearly 50 years. We studied the explanted hearts of 314 patients having CT at Baylor University Medical Center Dallas from 1993 to 2012, and compared the morphologic diagnoses to the clinical diagnoses before CT. ⋯ The phrase "non-IC" is a general term that includes several subsets of cardiac diseases and simply means "insignificant narrowing of 1 or more of the epicardial coronary arteries," but it does not specify the specific cause of the heart failure leading to CT. A number of cardiac illustrations are provided to demonstrate the morphologic variability occurring among the patients with IC and non-IC.
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The objective of this study was to assess the clinical role of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) analysis in noncystic focal liver lesion (FLL) classification/characterization. Six hundred liver magnetic resonances with multi-b (b = 50, 400, 800 s/mm) diffusion-weighted imaging (DwI) were retrospectively reviewed. Mean ADC was measured in 388 lesions (195 benign and 193 malignant) excluding internal necrotic areas. ⋯ Of all lesions, >1/3 (39.5%) presented values lower than 1 × 10 mm/s, with 90.0% chance of malignancy. Above 1.5 × 10 mm/s (about 20% of all lesions) chance of malignancy was 9.5%. DwI cannot assist in noncystic FLL characterization, but can help in FLL classification in about half the cases.