A comparative study of two methods for treatment of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo in the emergency department.

Introduction: Posterior canal benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (PC-BPPV) is considered the most common cause of peripheral vertigo in the emergency department (ED). Although the canalith repositioning maneuver (CRM) is the standard of care, the most effective method to deliver it in the ED has been poorly studied.

Objective: To compare two protocols of the Epley maneuver for the treatment of PC-BPPV.

Fluctuating Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex in Ménière's Disease.

Objectives: To describe the fluctuating high velocity vestibular ocular-reflex (VOR) during the Ménière's attacks and correlate those features with pathophysiology.

Patients: A patient with unilateral Ménière's disease (MD) was evaluated closely during and after acute vertigo episodes.

Main Outcome Measures: The spontaneous nystagmus and the dynamic VOR changes were measured by the video head impulse test (VHIT) at different stages of the vertigo crisis and during the quiescent phase of the condition.

[Giant benign gastric ulcer penetrating into the liver, pancreas and mesocolon].

Penetration of the liver, pancreas and transverse mesocolon by a giant benign gastric ulcer is relatively uncommon, and literature contains a few reports of this complication. The preoperative histological diagnosis may be difficult or impossible. A 63-year-old female patient with a history of seven months of lack of appetite, asthenia, epigastric pain, a remarkable weight decrease, presenting at physical examination a large, smooth margins, not pulsating, quite fixed abdominal mass, is reported.

[Acute pancreatitis. Our experience during 20 years].

Background: On the basis of personal experience and studies, the importance to diagnose quickly the seriousness of an acute pancreatitis with the help of simple and credible criteria of evaluation is underlined. It's also underlined the help of endoscopic papillosphincterotomy in the initial phase of a biliary pancreatitis; in fact this exam permits to perform a laparoscopic cholecystectomy in a second time and reduce surgical trauma.

Methods: Personal experience with 288 cases of acute pancreatitis (AP), during a twenty-year period (1975-1996) is described.

["Cast syndrome"].

The term "cast syndrome" (also called Wilkie's syndrome or superior mesenteric artery syndrome) means an intestinal obstruction caused by a duodenal vascular compression from the superior mesenteric artery. A case of this rare syndrome is reported in a 12-year-old child associated with the treatment by a plastered cast for idiopathic scoliosis. The pathogenesis, diagnosis, medical and surgical treatment are described.