A woman with abdominal pain and headache.

We describe a case of a 27-year-old woman who came to the Emergency Department presenting severe abdominal pain. She was evaluated by a gynaecologist and submitted to pelvic ecography without finding relevant alterations. In the successive hours, she presented severe headache in occipital region and in the posterior neck, poorly responsive to analgesic drugs.

Increased plasma glutamate in stroke patients might be linked to altered platelet release and uptake.

Experimental studies have shown the role of excitotoxicity in the pathogenesis of ischemic brain lesions, and glutamate levels have been found to be elevated in CSF and plasma from patients, early after stroke. In this study, we investigated whether platelets could be involved in the mechanism of altered plasma glutamate levels after stroke. Forty four patients, from 6 hours to 9 months after ischemic stroke, 15 age-related healthy controls and 15 controls with stroke risk factors or previous transient ischemic attack were enrolled.