Hypertensive Crisis with Neurological Impairment Mimicking a Guillain-Barrè Syndrome: Searching for a Link.

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) may be complicated by severe hypertension (HT) and in turns severe HT can occur with neurological damage mimicking a GBS, so that underlying causes should be investigated. We describe a case of a 62-year-old woman presented to the emergency department for hypertensive crisis with symmetric flaccid paralysis, hypotonia and hyporeflexia of both upper and lower limbs. Brain computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and lumbar puncture were normal.

Mood Disorders in Uncontrolled Hypertension Despite Multiple Anti-Hypertensive Medications: Searching for a Link.

Introduction: Resistant hypertension is a clinical condition in which blood pressure (BP) control is not achieved under a pharmacological therapy including a diuretic and at least two additional antihypertensive drug classes.

Aim: To discuss an unusual presentation of uncontrolled hypertension despite multiple anti-hypertensive medications.

Methods And Results: A 46-year-old woman presented with resistant hypertension (HT) and with a long history of polydipsia, polyuria, weight loss and psychiatric symptoms (sudden onset of personality disorder with free anxiety, negativism and asthenia) unsuccessfully treated with antidepressant drugs.

Anti-hypertensive treatment in pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma: current management and therapeutic features.

Pheochromocytoma (PH) and paraganglioma (PG) are neuroendocrine neoplasms arising from chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla and the sympathetic ganglia, respectively. Although are unusual cause of hypertension (HT) accounting for at most 0.1-0.

Antihypertensive Treatment in the Elderly and Very Elderly: Always "the Lower, the Better?".

Arterial hypertension (HT) is age dependent and, with the prolongation of life expectancy, affects more and more elderly people. In the elderly, HT is a risk factor for organ damage and cardiovascular (CV) events. Both pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic reduction of blood pressure (BP) is associated with a corresponding decrease in systolic-diastolic or isolated systolic HT.

Hyperthyroidism as a cause of pulmonary arterial hypertension: a prospective study.

The authors assessed the prevalence of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in patients with hyperthyroidism and evaluated the response to treatment of the thyrotoxicosis. They assessed the pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) at rest (estimated by echocardiography) in 23 consecutive patients diagnosed with hyperthyroidism due to Graves' disease or toxic multinodular goiter. Twelve of 23 patients (52%) did not show antithyroglobulin and antithyroperoxidase antibodies.

Minimally invasive radio-guided parathyroidectomy.

We reported here the data on minimally invasive radio-guided parathyroidectomy (MIRP) in a large group of 253 patients enrolled from the whole series of 355 consecutive patients affected by primary hyperparathyroidism (P-HPT) referred to our center. On the basis of preoperative imaging including Sestamibi scintigraphy and neck ultrasound (US), 263 patients (74% of the whole series) with evidence of a solitary parathyroid adenoma (PA) and a normal thyroid gland were addressed to MIRP and in 253 (96%) of them this minimally invasive neck exploration was successfully performed. The MIRP protocol developed in our center consisted of a very low 1 mCi Sestamibi injection in the operating room a few minutes before the start of intervention, thus minimizing the radiation exposure dose to the patient and personnel.

Pulmonary hypertension and systemic diseases.

Secondary pulmonary hypertension (sPH) may develop as a result of few systemic diseases as endocrine diseases, HIV infection, collagen diseases, liver and hematological disorders. In this review we discuss the role of systemic diseases in inducing PH starting from a pathological classification.

Hashimoto's thyroiditis and Graves' disease associated with retroperitoneal fibrosis.

Retroperitoneal fibrosis is a rare disease of uncertain pathogenesis. However, its possible association with several immunopathologic conditions, the possibility of systemic involvement by the fibrous process, the presence of various autoantibodies, and the frequent response to immunosuppressive treatment all support an autoimmune pathogenesis. Riedel's thyroiditis is a rare disease the pathogenesis of which is also thought to be immune-mediated based on its optimal response to steroids; Riedel's thyroiditis is also frequently reported in association with retroperitoneal fibrosis.