The Great Pretender: Rectal Syphilis Mimic a Cancer.

Rectal syphilis is a rare expression of the widely recognised sexual transmitted disease, also known as the great imitator for its peculiarity of being confused with mild anorectal diseases because of its vague symptoms or believed rectal malignancy, with the concrete risk of overtreatment. We present the case of a male patient with primary rectal syphilis, firstly diagnosed as rectal cancer; the medical, radiological, and endoscopic features are discussed below.

Association between abdominal aortic calcifications, bone mineral density and vertebral fractures in a cohort of HIV-positive patients.

Introduction: Evidence from HIV-negative cohorts suggests a link between osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. We evaluated the presence and distribution of abdominal aortic calcifications (AAC) and its correlation with bone mineral density (BMD) and vertebral fractures (VF) in a cohort of HIV-positive patients.

Materials And Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 280 asymptomatic HIV-positive patients from the SPID ("San Paolo" Infectious Diseases) cohort were submitted to lateral spine X-ray and DXA.