Medicine
-
Cystic parathyroid adenomas are rare and seldom arise in ectopically located glands which may be found within the carotid sheath, mediastinum, thymus, or thyroid grand. They cannot be detected consistently by any imaging methods. Unusual symptoms may bring about certain pitfalls and difficulties for the diagnosis of primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) caused by cystic parathyroid adenomas. Until now, there are no specific guidelines on the management of cystic ectopic intrathyroidal parathyroid adenoma (ETPA). ⋯ The diagnosis of cystic ETPA is easily overlooked for its rarity. Diagnostic pitfalls, including atypical symptoms, inconclusive imaging manifestation, and unidentified gross specimen, are highlighted. They make the diagnosis of PHPT caused by cystic ETPA challenging. Patients would rather choose surgical excision directly than invasive FNA. Acute hemorrhage of the preexisting ETPA may account for the cystic degeneration.
-
Fulminant type 1 diabetes mellitus (FT1DM) is a new subtype of type 1 diabetes mellitus that was first proposed by the Japanese scholar Imagawa in 2000. In the 2 patient cases described in this study, gastrointestinal symptoms were the first symptoms reported, and the initial blood glucose levels were very high. However, the glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels were not very high, the islet β-cell function was almost completely lost in a short time, and the metabolic disorder was severe; the patients' islet β cells demonstrated complete and irreversible functional damage, and the prognosis was poor. ⋯ FT1DM is a new subtype of type 1 diabetes mellitus. The onset of this disease is rapid, and the function of islet β cells is almost completely lost in a short time period. This metabolic disorder is severe, and the clinical manifestations are nonspecific. Unless a timely and accurate diagnosis is made, and patients receive prompt treatment, it is difficult to control the disease and the risk of death is high.
-
Case Reports
Surgical treatment of postburn heterotopic ossification around the elbow: Three case reports.
Heterotopic ossification (HO), which is defined as the formation of new bone in tissues that do not normally ossify, is an infrequent yet debilitating complication of burns. Herein, we report three patients who suffered from elbow HO after burn injury due to a dust explosion event. This is a case report that includes the most cases involved in a single mass casualty incident in the presented literature. ⋯ We discuss our experience of treating postburn HO and review the recent literature. The postburn HO treatment results of early surgical excision combined with immediate postoperative physical therapy were satisfactory.
-
Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images of atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor (ATRT) often present heterogeneous signals of various cells without remarkable features of the disease. We describe a unique case of atypical brain MRI images presenting as an type II neurofibromatosis and explore some diagnostic hints. ⋯ The diagnosis of ATRT can be challenging, in our case due to the disturbance of bilateral auditory nerve distribution area tumors. Under MRI, Irregular frontier, obvious mutual high and low signal on T2-weighted image, growing along cerebrospinal fluid pathway, and heterogeneous contrast enhancement should lead the clinician to strongly consider ATRT.
-
Observational Study
Assessment of nutritional status by dual X-Ray absorptiometry in women with rheumatoid arthritis: A case-control study.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been related to an impairment of the nutritional status. Body mass index (BMI) has been used but questions arise about how to properly evaluate nutritional status in RA patients. Few studies have evaluated it by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. ⋯ RA patients fulfilled criteria of sarcopenia in 44% of cases versus 19% of controls (P <.001). In RA patients, regarding SMI, BMI showed a high specificity to detect sarcopenia (94% of the patients with low BMI had sarcopenia) but low sensitivity (47% of the patients with normal BMI or overweight had sarcopenia). RA patients have an impairment of nutritional status associated to disease duration that looks like sarcopenia and that is not predicted by BMI.