Acute Disseminated Panniculitis Associated with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency.

Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, although one of the most common genetic diseases, is a very rare and often undiagnosed cause of panniculitis. The authors present a case characterized by an acute involvement of several areas in the thorax, abdomen, and limbs, occurring after repetitive trauma of the perineal area caused by a long period of cycling. After performing the differential diagnosis and establishing etiology, the patient was started on augmentation therapy with plasma-derived synthetic human alpha-1 proteinase inhibitor and the disease has been under control since then.

Hepatic Abscess due to and , Secondary to Gastric Perforation by a Fish Bone.

Introduction: Foreign-body ingestion is a common event, but in only less than 1% of the cases complications occur. Hepatic abscesses induced by foreign-body penetration are rare. To date, there are only 62 reported cases of hepatic abscess secondary to fish bone perforation of the gastrointestinal tract.

Acute bivalvular left-sided methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus endocarditis with cardiac, cerebral, renal and septic complications.

Infective endocarditis (IE) is now rare in developed countries, but its prevalence is higher in elderly patients with prosthetic valves, diabetes, renal impairment, or heart failure. An increase in health-care associated IE (HCAIE) has been observed due to invasive maneuvers (30% of cases). Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Enterococcus are the most common agents in HCAIE, causing high mortality and morbidity.

Blood loss anemia due to adenocarcinoma of the jejunum: case report and review of the literature.

Background: Small bowel tumors are rare, accounting for only 3-6% of gastrointestinal neoplasms, 1-2% of these being malignant. They must be considered whenever a patient presents with gastrointestinal bleeding, with normal upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and colonoscopy.

Case Presentation: We report a case of jejunal adenocarcinoma presenting as a blood loss anemia in a 65 year-old male, doing a brief review on the subject.

Thoracic empyema - a review based on three cases reports.

Complicated parapneumonic effusion is one in which an invasive procedure is necessary for its resolution and empyema means pus in the pleural space. An early diagnosis and therapy of these conditions results in less morbidity and mortality. CT of the chest is important to study complex pleural effusions.

Malignant hypertension, severe hypertensive retinopathy and malignant nephroangiosclerosis.

Hypertensive crises are frequent in the emergency room. The term covers a group of syndromes that have in common high blood pressure. When accompanied by acute organ damage, it is known as a hypertensive emergency, as opposed to a hypertensive urgency, in which there is no such damage.

Cardiac angiosarcoma--a review.

Based on a case of a patient with angiosarcoma (AS) of the right atrium with superior vena cava syndrome associated with urticaria and polyarthralgias, who died soon after surgery, the authors present a brief review of the subject of cardiac AS, an extremely rare pathology, usually diagnosed late due to its non-specific symptomatology. Several topics are discussed, including mechanisms of clinical manifestations caused by blood flow obstruction and valve dysfunction, local invasion with arrhythmias and pericardial effusion, embolic phenomena and constitutional symptoms. Imaging and histopathologic methods of diagnosis are considered, as well as references to cytogenetic analysis.

[Pulmonary embolism associated to HIV infection].

Antiphospholipid antibodies are frequently found in patients with HIV infection mainly in advanced forms of disease. Despite its elevated prevalence the association with thrombotic events is rare. The author present a clinical case of a HIV patient in which the first manifestation of the disease was a pulmonary embolism.