Development of a Clinical Prediction Model for Infective Endocarditis Among Patients with Undiagnosed Fever: A Pilot Case-Control Study.

Purpose: Infective endocarditis (IE) may be diagnosed as fever of unknown origin due to its delusively non-descriptive clinical features, especially in outpatient clinics. Our objective is to develop a prediction model to discriminate patients to be diagnosed as "definite" IE from "non-definite" by modified Duke criteria among patients with undiagnosed fever, using only history and results of physical examinations and common laboratory examinations.

Patients And Methods: The study was a single-center case-control study.

Diverticulitis in the sigmoid colon presenting with only lower anterior chest pain.

An 80-year-old man who presented with only lower anterior chest pain was diagnosed as sigmoid colon diverticulitis. His chest pain was considered to be referred pain from a disease at sigmoid colon, which should be suspected when other major causes of chest pain are excluded.

Slight brightness and osteosclerotic changes of bones on plain X-ray could be clues to the diagnosis of disseminated carcinomatosis of bone marrow.

Clinicians should be alert to the presence of slight brightness and osteosclerotic changes of bones on plain X-rays, especially in patients without a history of gastric, colon, breast, lung, or prostate cancers, which could lead to the diagnosis of disseminated carcinomatosis of bone marrow.