[Sonographic determination of spleen size: normal dimensions in adults with a healthy spleen].

Sonography can rapidly and reliably help to determine the size by the spleen. To standardise the sonographic dimensions of the healthy spleen, we effected sonographic examination of 793 female and male patients aged between 17 and 82 years with a healthy spleen. In 95% of the patients the length of the spleen was less than 11 cm, the breadth below 7 cm and the thickness less than 5 cm.

[Skeletal manifestations of generalized mastocytosis in the skeletal scintigram compared with roentgen findings].

Bone scans and skeletal x-rays of eight patients with systemic mastocytosis were reviewed. Mast cell infiltration of bone marrow had been proven histologically in every patient. Bone scan and roentgenographic findings are not specific for the disease and do not correlate well in some patients.

[Hypoferraemia and serum ferritin (author's transl)].

The wide use of serum iron determination by automatic analysers may lead to low values being taken as evidence of iron deficiency. Determining serum ferritin concentration in such cases provides rapid and reliable information to distinguish between reactive hypoferraemia and iron deficiency hypoferraemia, as demonstrated in tests on 71 patients with reproducible hypoferraemia. In 31 patients there was reactive hypoferraemia, in 40 iron deficiency hypoferraemia.

[Fanconi syndrome in an adult coincident with early myeloma with monoclonal IgG, type kappa, anomaly (author's transl)].

First description of a case of early myeloma with monoclonal IgG, type kappa, anomaly plus Bence-Jones proteinuria and Fanconi's syndrome in a 67-year-old woman. Characteristic crystalline inclusion bodies were found in plasma cells of bone marrow and renal tissue.

[Percutaneous punch biopsy of vertebral bodies with Jamshidi's needle (author's transl)].

In 24 patients with vertebral body changes which could not be clarified either by x-ray examination or scintigraphy, percutaneous vertebral body punch biopsies were performed between the twelfth thoracic vertebral body and the first sacral vertebral body, using Jamshidi's needle. Findings were malignant in six cases and benign in twelve cases, NAD in six cases. Jamshidi's biopsy needle, which is easy to manipulate, has proved very successful, with a good yield of material.