Exertional rhabdomyolysis: an analysis of 321 hospitalised US military service members and its relationship with heat illness.

Introduction: Exertional rhabdomyolysis is a syndrome of muscle breakdown following exercise. This study describes laboratory and demographic trends of service members hospitalised for exertional rhabdomyolysis and examines the relationships with heat illness.

Methods: We queried the US Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center's Defence Medical Epidemiology Database for hospitalised cases of rhabdomyolysis associated with physical exertion from January 2010 July 2013.

Ascariasis, trichuriasis and fatal non-transfusion.

Blood transfusion for chronic anemia can lead to acute or decompensated heart failure in patients who have fluid overload as part of their compensatory response and/or have intrinsic heart disease, and then it could be fatal in such clinical scenarios. This is the report of a case of profound chronic anemia in a young male patient, who was not transfused and then developed confusion followed by terminal cardiopulmonary arrest. Autopsy revealed severe trichuriasis to be the cause of the anemia, along with severe ascariasis, but minimal intrinsic brain disease.

Amniotic fluid embolism: lessons for rapid recognition and intervention.

Amniotic fluid embolism is a rare, often fatal complication of labor and delivery. The classic presentation is the sudden onset of a triad of clinical manifestations: hypoxia, hypotension and coagulopathy. Understanding of the syndrome as an immunologically mediated, complicated and often catastrophic maternal response to fetal or placental antigens is coming into focus.