Paget's disease of bone is a disorder of osteoclasts which hampers the physiological process of bone remodeling. It is the most common metabolic orthopedic disease in the Caucasian populace; we report the diagnosis of Paget's disease of bone in a South-Asian male in his early 50s with a history of gastrointestinal symptoms, weight loss and back pain. An alkaline phosphatase level of 1104 IU/L was noted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFahr's disease is a rare condition characterised by the presence of idiopathic familial bilateral basal ganglia calcifications, transmitted in an autosomal-dominant fashion. Diagnosis is based on clinical features of neuropsychiatric and somatic symptoms in conjunction with radiological findings. Our patient, a man in his early 50s, presented with pneumonia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnilateral pulmonary artery atresia (UPAA) is a rare embryonic vascular malformation, leading to general presentations of exertional dyspnoea, pneumonia and haemoptysis. Our patient, a man in his early 30s, presented with a history of progressive breathlessness over a period of 2 years. History showed multiple admissions for pneumonia over his childhood and adolescence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSchimmelpenning-Feuerstein-Mims syndrome is a rare disorder generally characterised by a craniofacial nevus with multisystemic presentations. Our patient, an infant, was brought to the emergency department in a postictal state following a first seizure episode. A physical examination showed a solitary dark brown, well-demarcated verrucous plaque extending from the patient's left temporal region to the left mandible without crossing the midline.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCongenital dyserythropoietic anaemia (CDA) type II is a rare disease characterised by inefficient erythropoiesis and mononuclear cytopenia. Patients generally present with extravascular haemolytic anaemia, jaundice and splenomegaly. A female patient in her mid-teens presented with severe anaemia and abdominal distention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHomozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia (HoFH) is a disorder affecting low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor genes. Patients typically have a triad of elevated LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C), xanthomatosis and premature atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Our patient, a preteen boy, presented with signs of hypertensive encephalopathy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParoxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria is a rare form of intravascular hemolysis caused by an acquired deficiency of complement regulatory glycoproteins. In our case, a 53-year-old male presented with fatigue, discoloration of urine, and reduced urine output. Preliminary investigations showed severe anemia (3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpontaneous transvaginal small bowel evisceration is an extremely rare condition with a few more than 100 documented cases to date. The complications of such a rare entity revolve around its preoperative presentation as well as its operative and postoperative complications. The complications seen are intestinal incarcerations and perforations with an increased risk of post-surgical ileus and peritonitis in a time-dependent fashion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRickettsiae are a group of eukaryotic obligatory intracellular parasites with ticks and mites as vectors. is the Indian counterpart of Rocky Mountain spotted fever causing the endemic variant - Indian tick typhus. This disease can cause severe illness in adults and children and can be missed despite the availability of serological tests.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFKimura's disease is a rare, benign entity that causes subcutaneous angioblastic lymphoid hyperplasia with eosinophilia. It usually presents with subcutaneous lymphoid swellings with regional lymphadenopathy and salivary gland masses. Kimura's disease is frequently associated with renal involvement, which includes proteinuria and nephrotic syndrome as the most common presentations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFXeroderma pigmentosum (XP) is a rare autosomal recessive pathology affecting nucleotide excision repair against ultraviolet radiation. This leads to an increased predisposition to developing ophthalmological, neurological, and cutaneous conditions with an increased cell turnover. This case reports a late presentation of XP presenting with metastatic squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and septic shock in an eight-year-old Indian male.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Trastuzumab is a targeted therapy for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer. However, trastuzumab-induced cardiotoxicity (TIC) has been reported when trastuzumab is administered to patients as a single agent or combined with anthracycline. Currently no means for detecting the early onset of TIC such as a protein biomarker is available.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: FGFR inhibitors are approved for the treatment of advanced cholangiocarcinoma harboring FGFR2 fusions. However, the response rate is moderate, and resistance emerges rapidly due to acquired secondary FGFR2 mutations or due to other less-defined mechanisms. Here, we conducted high-throughput combination drug screens, biochemical analysis, and therapeutic studies using patient-derived models of FGFR2 fusion-positive cholangiocarcinoma to gain insight into these clinical profiles and uncover improved treatment strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn patients with metastatic cancer, spatial heterogeneity of somatic alterations may lead to incomplete assessment of a cancer's mutational profile when analyzing a single tumor biopsy. In this study, we perform sequencing of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and distinct metastatic tissue samples from ten rapid autopsy cases with pre-treated metastatic cancer. We show that levels of heterogeneity in genetic biomarkers vary between patients but that gene expression signatures representative of the tumor microenvironment are more consistent.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe diagnosis of biliary strictures in clinical practice can be challenging. Discriminating between benign and malignant biliary strictures is important to prevent the morbidity and mortality associated with incorrect diagnoses. Missing a malignant biliary stricture may delay surgery, resulting in poor prognostic outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe relationship of SARS-CoV-2 lung infection and severity of pulmonary disease is not fully understood. We analyzed autopsy specimens from 24 patients who succumbed to SARS-CoV-2 infection using a combination of different RNA and protein analytical platforms to characterize inter- and intra- patient heterogeneity of pulmonary virus infection. There was a spectrum of high and low virus cases that was associated with duration of disease and activation of interferon pathway genes.
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