A woman presenting with an unusual cause of fulminant liver failure and sepsis.

We present the case of a 61-year-old woman who presented with acutely worsening right upper quadrant pain and was found to be in acute liver failure with Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteremia. Despite aggressive intensive care management, the patient ultimately died of refractory shock attributed to sepsis and fulminant liver failure. On autopsy, she was found unexpectedly to have diffuse intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma with metastases to regional lymph nodes and intravascular spread to the lungs.

F-18 FDG perfusion PET: intraprocedural assessment of the liver tumor ablation margin.

Purpose: To evaluate F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) perfusion PET during FDG PET/CT-guided liver tumor microwave ablation procedures for assessing the ablation margin and correlating minimum margin measurements with local progression.

Methods: This IRB-approved, HIPAA-compliant study included 20 adult patients (11 M, 9 F; mean age 65) undergoing FDG PET/CT-guided liver microwave ablation to treat 31 FDG-avid tumors. Intraprocedural FDG perfusion PET was performed to assess the ablation margin.

Structured reporting of CT enterography for inflammatory bowel disease: effect on key feature reporting, accuracy across training levels, and subjective assessment of disease by referring physicians.

Purpose: To compare the content and accuracy of structured reporting (SR) versus non-structured reporting (NSR) for computed tomographic enterography (CTE) of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Materials And Methods: This IRB-approved, HIPAA-compliant, retrospective study included 30 adult subjects (15 male, 15 female; mean age 41.9 years) with IBD imaged with CTE.

T cell receptor/CARMA1/NF-κB signaling controls T-helper (Th) 17 differentiation.

IL-17-producing CD4 T cells play a key role in immune responses against extracellular bacteria and autoimmunity. Nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) is required for T-cell activation and selected effector functions, but its role in Th17 differentiation is controversial. Using genetic mouse models that impede T-cell-NF-κB signaling either downstream of the T-cell receptor (TCR) or of IκB kinase β (IKKβ), we demonstrate that NF-κB signaling controls not only survival and proliferation of activated T cells, but, if cell survival and cell-cycle progression are enabled, has an additional role in promoting completion of Th17 differentiation.

Competitive control of independent programs of tumor necrosis factor receptor-induced cell death by TRADD and RIP1.

Stimulation of tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1) can initiate several cellular responses, including apoptosis, which relies on caspases, necrotic cell death, which depends on receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 (RIP1), and NF-kappaB activation, which induces survival and inflammatory responses. The TNFR-associated death domain (TRADD) protein has been suggested to be a crucial signal adaptor that mediates all intracellular responses from TNFR1. However, cells with a genetic deficiency of TRADD are unavailable, precluding analysis with mature immune cell types.

Requirement for caspase-8 in NF-kappaB activation by antigen receptor.

Caspase-8, a proapoptotic protease, has an essential role in lymphocyte activation and protective immunity. We show that caspase-8 deficiency (CED) in humans and mice specifically abolishes activation of the transcription factor nuclear factor kappaB (NF-kappaB) after stimulation through antigen receptors, Fc receptors, or Toll-like receptor 4 in T, B, and natural killer cells. Caspase-8 also causes the alphabeta complex of the inhibitor of NF-kappaB kinase (IKK) to associate with the upstream Bcl10-MALT1 (mucosa-associated lymphatic tissue) adapter complex.