Long-term steroids and an extensive diverticular abscess.

The authors report a case of a 70-year-old lady who was on steroids for over 40 years for asthma and presented with a subcutaneous abscess related to diverticular disease of the colon. This case illustrates how steroids can mask the disease process and also highlights that diverticular abscess perforation is one of the many complications of corticosteroid therapy.

A 3 cm sealed pyloric perforation discovered during emergency cholecystectomy.

The diagnosis of acute cholecystitis is made on clinical, haematological, biochemical and radiological grounds, and laparoscopic cholecystectomy is commonly performed in the emergency setting. We report a case in which a patient diagnosed with acute cholecystitis was found to have a sealed pyloric perforation at laparoscopy as well as cholecystitis.

Necrotising fasciitis following inguinal hernia repair.

We report a case of necrotising fasciitis following inguinal hernia repair. It is rare for clean operations such as hernia repair to be associated with infection, and even rarer for them to be associated with necrotising fasciitis, with only a few reports in the literature.