Severe rhinovirus pneumonia in a young woman taking performance-enhancing drugs.

A 22-year-old woman presented to the emergency room of a local hospital with pleuritic chest pain. She regularly worked out and admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Clinical findings and further diagnostic work up revealed a diagnosis of perimyocarditis, and adequate therapy was initiated.

Value of coining on the improvement of endurance in slotted intramedullary nails.

Cracking of intramedullary nails, starting at the proximal end of the partial slot and propagating in a circumferential direction, has been observed. These partial cracks are relatively frequent, although full failures are very rare and do not disturb fracture healing. Coining is a cold-working process used to improve the endurance of structures with residual compressive stresses generated by plastic deformation.

Stiffness characteristics of the circular Ilizarov device as opposed to conventional external fixators.

Ilizarov proposes the use of a special circular fixation device for treatment of bone defects and nonunions or for limb lengthening. Supposition was that the success of this method has to do with the specific mechanical behavior of the device. This behavior is a result of the configuration of the fixation elements.

A comparative study of the initial stability of cementless hip prostheses.

In the process of prosthetic loosening, the initial motion of the implant relative to the bone is a key element. In order to provide quantitative information, three straight and one curved cementless hip stems were submitted to in vitro tests in autopsy specimens of the femur under dynamic axial and torsional loads with the displacements measured in several directions. The results were compared to those of an additional group of cemented straight stem prostheses providing reference values.