A pulmonary hypertension model induced by continuous pulmonary air embolization.

Background: Our goal was to create a clinically relevant large animal model of pulmonary hypertension to serve as a platform allowing preclinical risk/benefit assessment of innovative therapies including artificial lung prototypes.

Methods: Small amounts of filtered air were continuously infused into the pulmonary circulation of sheep (n = 4) for 8 wk. Hemodynamics and blood gases were measured daily.

Bilateral extensive ductitis obliterans manifested by bloody nipple discharge in a patient with long-term diabetes mellitus.

Ductitis obliterans or mastitis obliterans is a rare late manifestation of mammary ductal ectasia. We describe a long-term diabetic patient who presented with bilateral bloody nipple discharge and poorly defined nodularities around the nipple of both breasts. The ductography showed multiple segments of irregular ductal narrowing and intraluminal filling defects in both breasts.

Diffuse idiopathic pulmonary neuroendocrine cell hyperplasia.

Diffuse idiopathic pulmonary neuroendocrine cell hyperplasia is an extremely rare pulmonary lesion, with only 39 cases reported in the literature. We report an additional case and review the literature. The patient is a 41-year-old man with a 5-year history of progressive dyspnea, cough, and wheezing.

Immunohistochemical and ultrastructural analysis of a poorly differentiated pediatric age Sertoli-Leydig cell tumor.

Ovarian Sertoli-Leydig cell tumors (SLCT) are rare in young women. They are divided into six categories based on the degree of differentiation and the presence of heterologous elements. Less than 15% of these tumors are poorly differentiated.

ARDS and diffuse alveolar damage: a pathologist's perspective.

Diffuse alveolar damage (DAD) is the histologic correlate of most patients with adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). It is a relatively straight forward diagnosis and the main differential diagnosis clinically is acute pneumonia and histologically is bronchiolitis obliterans and organizing pneumonia (BOOP). The histologic progression of DAD includes 3 phases (exudative, proliferative, and fibrotic) that correlate with the time rather than its specific cause.

Activation of the hedgehog pathway in a subset of lung cancers.

Activation of the hedgehog pathway is reported in lung cancer, but its frequency remains unknown. We examine activation of this pathway in lung cancers by in situ hybridization and immunohistochemstry, and find that less than 10% of the tumors have elevated hedgehog target gene expression. We further identify a cell line NCI-H209 and two primary tumors with no detectable Su(Fu), a negative regulator of the pathway.

Leiomyosarcoma of the inferior vena cava: three case reports and review of the literature.

We describe 3 cases of leiomyosarcoma of the inferior vena cava (IVC) and review the literature describing clinicopathologic features of 211 cases and the outcome. Of these, 74% of the cases affected women with median age of 52 years. The most common symptoms were abdominal pain or mass (57%), Budd-Chiari syndrome (17%), and deep vein thrombosis (4%).

Adrenocortical carcinoma with concomitant myelolipoma in a patient with hyperaldosteronism.

We present a case of aldosterone-secreting adrenocortical carcinoma with concomitant myelolipoma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such reported case. The patient was a 43-year-old man with severe hypertension.

Renal cell carcinoma metastatic to Hurthle cell adenoma of thyroid.

Metastases to the thyroid gland are a common finding at autopsy in patients who died of malignancy and are often misdiagnosed as primary thyroid neoplasms clinically. We present a patient with a rare, unusual case of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) metastatic to a Hurthle cell adenoma of the thyroid. A 53-year-old woman was admitted to a University of Texas Medical Branch Hospital (Galveston, TX) for a large right thyroid mass that was present for 3 months.

Multiple Langerhans cell nodules in an incidental thymectomy.

The isolated appearance of Langerhans cell histiocytosis in the thymus is quite rare. We report the finding of multiple small Langerhans cell nodules in the thymus of an 11-month-old infant who had undergone thymectomy in the course of surgical correction of tetralogy of Fallot. The subtle appearance of some of these nodules and aggregates was unlike the pattern of massive thymic infiltration seen in 7 previously reported cases of thymic Langerhans cell histiocytosis in childhood.

Low-grade osteosarcoma of the jaw.

We describe a case of low-grade osteosarcoma of the jaw. The patient is a 25-year-old woman who presented with large, nontender, slowly progressive, expansile left mandibular mass. X-ray showed a predominantly hypodense mass with erosive growth pattern affecting the angle, posterior body, and ramus of the left mandible.

Pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia of the breast.

Pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia is a benign proliferative lesion of the mammary stroma that rarely presents as a localized mass. We describe the clinical, radiologic, cytologic, and histologic features of a case of pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia that presented as a rapidly growing breast lesion in a 36-year-old woman.