Diagnosis of vertebral fractures on lateral chest X-ray: intraobserver agreement of semi-quantitative vertebral fracture assessment.

Background: In clinical practice lateral images of the chest are performed for various reasons. As these lateral chest X rays show the vertebrae of the thoracic and thoraco-lumbar region, we wondered if these X-rays can be used for evaluation of vertebral fractures instead of separate thoracic spine X-rays.

Methods: To evaluate the agreement and intraobserver reliability of the semi-quantitative method for vertebral fractures on the lateral chest X-ray (X-chest) in comparison to the lateral thoracic spine X-ray (X-Tspine), two observers scored vertebral fractures on X-Tspine and twice on X-chest, separately,blinded and in different time periods.

A rare case of a groin hernia: the Hesselbach's hernia.

A 61-year-old woman presented with pain in the left groin. The pain radiated from the groin to the knee. At physical examination, a non-reducible swelling was found lateral to the femoral vessels.

Stroke mimicking conversion disorder: two young women who put our feet back on the ground.

We describe two young female patients with symptoms and signs initially of conversion disorder. It became apparent, however, that both patients had a posterior circulation stroke. These cases remind us of just how broad the clinical presentation of neurological diseases is and illustrate how careful we must be in our own attributions, actions and diagnoses particularly when assessing patients with bizarre behaviour and with apparent inconsistencies on neurological examination.