ATTR Cardiac Amyloidosis in a Patient With Pulmonary Sarcoidosis: Not All That Glitters Is Gold.

Background: Amyloid transthyretin (ATTR) cardiac amyloidosis is a progressive cardiomyopathy characterized by misfolded transthyretin deposition, resulting in ventricular stiffening which may cause cardiac dysfunction.

Case Summary: An 86-year-old man with history of pulmonary sarcoidosis presented with progressive dyspnea and emesis. An electrocardiogram demonstrated complete heart block and he underwent permanent pacemaker implantation.

Non-ECG-gated cardiac CT angiography in acute stroke is feasible and detects sources of embolism.

Background: A significant portion of cryptogenic stroke is hypothesized to be secondary to cardiac embolism. However, transthoracic echocardiogram is usually delayed after stroke, and more detailed cardiac imaging is not routinely done.

Aims: This study aimed to determine whether non-ECG-gated cardiac CT angiography (cCTA) during hyperacute stroke would provide diagnostic quality images and act as an adjunct modality of cardiac imaging to detect sources of emboli.

Middle Mediastinal Mass Compressing the Pulmonary Trunk in a Patient With a History of Breast Cancer.

A 61-year-old White woman, nonsmoker, was referred to Respirology for evaluation of small pulmonary nodules discovered incidentally on surveillance imaging 3 years after breast cancer treatment. She had a remote left breast ductal carcinoma in situ treated with lumpectomy followed by radiation therapy, and recurrent stage 1 breast cancer (estrogen receptor/progesterone receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative) treated with mastectomy, axillary lymph node dissection, and reconstructive surgery, followed with adjuvant chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and letrozole maintenance. Her other medical conditions included compensated cirrhosis secondary to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, OSA, restless legs syndrome, obesity, anxiety, and depression.

Diagnostic Yield for Cancer and Diagnostic Accuracy of Computed Tomography-guided Core Needle Biopsy of Subsolid Pulmonary Lesions.

Purpose: We aimed to determine the diagnostic yield for cancer and diagnostic accuracy of computed tomography-guided core needle biopsy (CTNB) in subsolid pulmonary lesions.

Materials And Methods: Fifty-two biopsies of 52 subsolid lesions in 51 patients were identified from a database of 912 lung biopsies and analyzed for the diagnostic yield for cancer and diagnostic accuracy of core CTNB diagnosis as well as complication rates.

Results: When indeterminate biopsy results were included in the analysis, the diagnostic yield for cancer was 80.

Rasamsonia argillacea pulmonary and aortic graft infection in an immune-competent patient.

Rasamsonia argillacea (formerly known as Geosmithia argillacea) is a fungus recently recognized as a pathogen of immunocompromised patients. Here we report the first case of Rasamsonia infection in an immunocompetent host, presenting as a pulmonary and aortic graft infection. Its morphological similarity to nonpathogenic Penicillium species delayed the diagnosis and initiation of appropriate treatment.

A significant reduction of the diaphragm in mdx:MyoD-/-(9th) embryos suggests a role for MyoD in the diaphragm development.

To further investigate the role of MyoD during skeletal myogenesis, we backcrossed mdx mutant mice (lacking dystrophin) with MyoD knock-out mice to obtain viable mice with MyoD allele on a pure mdx background. However, after nine generations of backcrossing, it was not possible to obtain a viable mdx:MyoD-/- phenotype (designated as: mdx:MyoD-/-(9th)). The compound-mutant embryos were examined just before birth.