Acute bacterial pericarditis is rarely encountered in the modern antibiotic era. Purulent pericarditis is a serious form of bacterial pericarditis with high mortality. It can rapidly progress to cardiac tamponade, leading to hemodynamic instability, septic shock, and death if left untreated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEpidural analgesia is considered the standard of care but cannot be provided to all patients Liposomal bupivacaine has been approved for field blocks such as transversus abdominis plane (TAP) blocks but has not been clinically compared against other modalities. In this retrospective propensity matched cohort study we thus tested the primary hypothesis that TAP infiltration are noninferior (not worse) to continuous epidural analgesia and superior (better) to intravenous opioid analgesia in patients recovering from major lower abdominal surgery. 318 patients were propensity matched on 18 potential factors among three groups (106 per group): 1) TAP infiltration with bupivacaine liposome; 2) continuous Epidural analgesia with plain bupivacaine; and; 3) intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (IV PCA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Community Support Oncol
October 2015
Zoledronic acid is a parenteral long-acting bisphosphonate that has been shown to be more effective than other bisphosphonates in treating hypercalcemia of malignancy. It is important to be aware of its ability to induce prolonged and severe hypocalcemia (hypoCa) following administration, which can be difficult to control despite aggressive calcium replacement. We report on a patient with metastatic breast cancer who presented with severe symptomatic hypoCa after receiving zoledronic acid for hypercalcemia of malignancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA young healthy postpartum mother presented with intermittent high fevers and tachycardia. Appropriate testing was done to rule out infectious causes including pan cultures but no identifiable infectious source was found. A CT of the abdomen showed a retroperitoneal mass with two small pulmonary nodules and a bony metastatic lesion.
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