[Nocardiosis as a Differential Diagnosis of Pulmonary Epitheloid Cell Granulomas].

A 47-year-old man presented with fever, weight loss and pulmonary consolidations and cavitation in the x-ray of the thorax. The comprehensive diagnostics resulted pulmonary epitholoid cell granulomas, therefore an immunosuppressive therapy was applied on suspicion of sarcoidosis. Progressivly the pulmonary infiltration increased and cerebral and abdominal abscesses were determined with microbiological detection of Nocardia farcinica.

The Randomized Freeway Stent Study: Drug-Eluting Balloons Outperform Standard Balloon Angioplasty for Postdilatation of Nitinol Stents in the SFA and PI Segment.

Purpose: The prospective randomized multicenter Freeway study evaluated the possible hemodynamic and clinical benefits of primary stent insertion followed by percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) with drug-eluting balloons (DEB) over post-stent insertion PTA with standard balloons in the treatment of symptomatic femoropopliteal arteriosclerotic lesions.

Methods: In total, 204 patients in 13 centers in Germany and Austria were enrolled and randomized to primary stenting followed by either FREEWAY™ drug-eluting balloon or standard PTA balloon angioplasty. The primary endpoint was the rate of clinically driven target lesion revascularization (TLR) at 6 months; the secondary endpoints include TLR rate at 12 months and primary patency, shift in Rutherford classification, ankle-brachial index (ABI) and major adverse events (MAE) at 6 and 12 months.