Sulfur mustard exposure presenting to a community emergency department.

We report dermal exposure to a chemical warfare agent, sulfur mustard, in a 28-year-old commercial fisherman. Chemical warfare agents such as sulfur mustard are considered potential terrorist weapons, and suspected exposure requires notification of federal authorities. We address potential pitfalls when alerting authorities and methods to avoid such obstacles, and we describe the clinical management of sulfur mustard toxicity.

Acute respiratory distress associated with inhaled hydrocarbon.

Background: Pneumonitis is a well-known complication following aspiration of ingested liquid hydrocarbons. There are few data about acute pulmonary toxicity from unintentional hydrocarbon inhalation; most human cases involve products containing a fluoropolymer in combination with hydrocarbons.

Methods: Case report of a 45-year-old male who presented with respiratory distress after a 15-min inhalational exposure to a canvas waterproofing spray containing liquefied petroleum gas, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, and isopropanol.

Liver aminotransferases are elevated with rhabdomyolysis in the absence of significant liver injury.

Rhabdomyolysis is an uncommon finding in the emergency department. However, the clinical implications of rhabdomyolysis are important, with a significant minority of patients developing acute renal failure and multiorgan failure. When present, the cause of elevated aminotransferases in the setting of rhabdomyolysis is often unclear.

Heterologous cells cooperate to augment stem cell migration, homing, and engraftment.

T-lymphocyte depletion of bone marrow grafts compromises engraftment, suggesting a facilitating mechanism provided by the T cells that has been shown to associate with CD8(+) but not CD4(+) T cells. Explanations for this phenomenon have focused on immune targeting of residual host cells or cytokine production. We provide evidence for an alternative mechanism based on cooperative effects on cell motility.

Thymocyte emigration is mediated by active movement away from stroma-derived factors.

T cells leave the thymus at a specific time during differentiation and do not return despite elaboration of known T cell chemoattractants by thymic stroma. We observed differentiation stage-restricted egress of thymocytes from an artificial thymus in which vascular structures or hemodynamics could not have been playing a role. Hypothesizing that active movement of cells away from a thymic product may be responsible, we demonstrated selective reduction in emigration from primary thymus by inhibitors of active movement down a concentration gradient (chemofugetaxis).