Predation Risk Perception, Food Density and Conspecific Cues Shape Foraging Decisions in a Tropical Lizard.

When foraging, animals can maximize their fitness if they are able to tailor their foraging decisions to current environmental conditions. When making foraging decisions, individuals need to assess the benefits of foraging while accounting for the potential risks of being captured by a predator. However, whether and how different factors interact to shape these decisions is not yet well understood, especially in individual foragers.

Does lung biopsy help patients with interstitial lung disease?

Objectives: The decision to perform lung biopsy in the evaluation of interstitial lung disease (ILD) is based on the probability that this examination will yield a specific diagnosis, leading to a change in treatment. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that influence the diagnostic yield of lung biopsy for ILD.

Methods: One hundred patients underwent lung biopsy for ILD over a 5-year period.

Tracheal obstruction in achalasia: a role for airway stenting?

We describe an 82-year-old woman who presented with acute tracheal obstruction secondary to advanced, asymptomatic achalasia. Conventional treatment of her achalasia failed to relieve recurrent episodes of airway obstruction requiring endotracheal intubation. Because she was not fit for an operation, a Gianturco endotracheal stent was placed bronchoscopically.

Tracheoesophageal fistula after chemotherapy for lymphoma.

We present a case of tracheoesophageal fistula that occurred after chemotherapy for stage IV B Hodgkin's lymphoma. We outline our surgical management of the case and advocate the use of a single-stage repair in selected cases.

The results of surgery for atrial septal defect in patients aged fifty years and over.

We examined the cases of 31 patients over the age of 50 years undergoing operative closure of isolated ostium secundum atrial septal defect. The lesion had been diagnosed in all cases prior to cardiac catheterization. To assess the importance of pre-operative data on surgical outcome, the patients were first divided into three groups according to mean pulmonary artery pressure (PAP): less than 16 mmHg (Group A), 16-30 mmHg (Group B) and greater than 30 mmHg (Group C).

What a load of bullae!

Appropriate and timely insertion of chest drains can be lifesaving. The radiological absence of lung markings is not exclusively diagnostic of pneumothorax. The insertion of an intrapleural drain should effect an immediate clinical and radiological improvement.

Primary pulmonary artery sarcoma: intra-operative similarity to pulmonary embolus.

An infarcted right lower lobe, thought to be due to a thrombotic pulmonary embolus, was resected in a 48 year old man. Subsequent examination of the lobe unexpectedly showed the infarction to be secondary to a primary sarcoma of the pulmonary artery.