[Artifacts and pitfalls in the interpretation of breast magnetic resonance imaging].

Together with mammography and ultrasonography, MRI has become a necessary technique for the management of breast disease. To reach a correct and precise diagnosis when interpreting breast MRI studies, it is essential to take into account artifacts and pitfalls due to technical, anatomic, physiological, disease-related, and operator-dependent factors. A multimodal approach taking into account the limitations of each technique can help minimize false positives and false negatives and thus increase the sensitivity and specificity of each test.

Membrane Bioincompatibility and Ultrafiltration Effects on Pulse Wave Analysis during Haemodialysis.

Membrane bioincompatibility was demonstrated by successive white blood cell counts and C3a generation. Pulse wave analysis was obtained by applanation tonometry (SphygmoCor) in a sequential way: basal, after 30 minutes with nul ultrafiltration, and after a complete dialysis with ultrafiltration. At 15 minutes of haemodialysis, significant decrease in leukocyte count occurred: 6801 ± 1186 versus 4412 ± 1333 (P < 0.

Imaging findings in pulmonary vasculitis.

Vasculitis is a destructive inflammatory process affecting blood vessels. Pulmonary vasculitis may develop secondary to other conditions or constitute a primary idiopathic disorder. Thoracic involvement is most common in primary idiopathic large-vessel vasculitides (Takayasu arteritis, giant cell arteritis, Behçet disease) and primary antineutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody-associated small-vessel vasculitides (Wegener granulomatosis, microscopic polyangiitis, Churg-Strauss syndrome).

Effectiveness and pattern of use of continuation and maintenance electroconvulsive therapy.

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) who require an acute course of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) have high relapse rates. Therefore, an effective maintenance treatment strategy needs to be established. Continuation and maintenance ECT (C/M-ECT) could be an adequate treatment option, although the lack of controlled studies has led to its usefulness being questioned.

Effects of oral antioxidant treatment upon the dynamics of human sperm DNA fragmentation and subpopulations of sperm with highly degraded DNA.

The primary aim of this study was to determine the effect of oral antioxidant treatment (1500 mg of l-Carnitine; 60 mg of vitamin C; 20 mg of coenzyme Q10; 10 mg of vitamin E; 10 mg of zinc; 200 μg of vitamin B9; 50 μg of selenium; 1 μg of vitamin B12) during a time period of 3 months upon the dynamics of sperm DNA fragmentation following varying periods of sperm storage (0 h, 2 h, 6 h, 8 h and 24 h) at 37 °C in a cohort of 20 infertile patients diagnosed with asthenoteratozoospermia. A secondary objective was to use the sperm chromatin dispersion test (SCD) to study antioxidant effects upon a specific subpopulation of highly DNA degraded sperm (DDS). Semen parameters and pregnancy rate (PR) were also determined.

[Choking phobia: care plan in children and adolescents].

Eating disorders are a common problem in childhood. Swallowing phobia is characterised by fear of choking on having consumed food, liquids or tablets. Although they are considered a minor disorder and have low prevalence, there has been an increase in its incidence in children and adolescents in the past few years.

Fetal MR in the evaluation of pulmonary and digestive system pathology.

Background: Prenatal awareness of an anomaly ensures better management of the pregnant patient, enables medical teams and parents to prepare for the delivery, and is very useful for making decisions about postnatal treatment. Congenital malformations of the thorax, abdomen, and gastrointestinal tract are common. As various organs can be affected, accurate location and morphological characterization are important for accurate diagnosis.

Voiding urosonography including urethrosonography: high-quality examinations with an optimised procedure using a second-generation US contrast agent.

Background: Voiding urosonography (VUS) is established as a technique for detecting vesicoureteral reflux in children.

Objective: To evaluate the quality of images of the entire urinary tract when using a second-generation US contrast agent and a modified VUS technique.

Materials And Methods: We evaluated 307 VUS examinations performed using SonoVue® in 591 pelvi-ureter units in 295 children of mean age, 27.

[Usefulness of magnetic resonance imaging in the prenatal study of malformations of the face and neck].

Sonography has been the fundamental pillar of fetal diagnosis, and until relatively recently, no other valid and reliable noninvasive technique that could adequately determine fetal morphology was available. However, even after the technological advances in obstetric sonography, is still unable to detect some anomalies. One example of this shortcoming is the morphological study of the face and neck.

Men with hyperferritinemia and diabetes in the Mediterranean area do not have a higher iron overload than those without diabetes.

Aim: To assess the role of iron overload in type 2 diabetic men with hyperferritinemia.

Methods: 150 men were recruited from a genetic screening programme for hereditary hemocromatosis (HH) and were tested for type 2 diabetes, other components of the metabolic syndrome, beta cell function (BCF), insulin sensitivity, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and iron overload.

Results: Fifty-one men had type 2 diabetes.

[Radiological approach to cardiac tamponade].

Cardiac tamponade is a life-threatening medical emergency. The radiologist's role in the clinical management of patients with cardiac tamponade is usually minor and nearly always limited to the diagnostic process, and the condition is normally treated by other specialists. In this review, we aim to provide readers with the essential information to enable a complete diagnostic and therapeutic radiological approach.

[Safety and yield of percutaneous renal biopsy using an automatic 16G needle in native kidneys].

Objectives: US-guided percutaneous renal biopsy is the procedure of choice for obtaining histological specimens from the renal parenchyma. The superiority of using automatic needles under US guidance is well established in the literature. However, little information is available about the use of 16G needles, so we reviewed our experience in this technique.

When to suspect pulmonary vasculitis: radiologic and clinical clues.

Vasculitis is an inflammatory destructive process affecting blood vessels. Pulmonary vasculitis may be secondary to other conditions or constitute a primary, and in most cases idiopathic, disorder. Underlying conditions in the secondary vasculitides are infectious diseases, connective tissue diseases, malignancies, and hypersensitivity disorders.

[Current state of noninvasive vascular diagnosis in Spain].

Objective: Noninvasive vascular diagnosis has become routine in radiology departments in Spain. This article aims to communicate the results of a survey sent to a large number of Spanish hospitals to obtain information about the following aspects of noninvasive vascular diagnosis: who performs it and how, in what conditions it is performed, what problems there are in relation to these techniques, and what the training is like.

Material And Methods: In October 2008, we sent a questionnaire to 93 hospitals with training programs in diagnostic imaging and to 45 hospitals without training programs.

Bloodstream infection in the ICU.

Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) occur in 5%-10% of patients admitted to hospitals in the United States, and HAIs remain a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Patients admitted to ICUs account for 45% of all hospital-acquired pneumonias and bloodstream infections (BSIs), although critical care units comprise only 5% to 10% of all hospital beds. The severity of underlying disease, invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures that breach normal host defenses, contaminated life-support equipment, and the prevalence of resistant microorganisms are critical factors in the high rate of infection in the ICUs.

[Relationship between reticulated platelets and megacaryocyte number in thrombocytopenic patients].

Background And Introduction: Marrow aspiration is a test that helps the pathogenic diagnosis of thrombocytopenia. Our goal was to analyze the correlation between reticulated platelets (RP) values in peripheral blood with megakaryocytic number in bone marrow in a group of thrombocytopenic patients.

Patients And Methods: Prospective observational study in thrombocytopenic patients, between June 2002 and June 2005.

Noonan syndrome associated with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Noonan syndrome (NS) is a developmental disorder characterised mainly by cardiac defects and craniofacial dysmorphia. An association between NS and some autoimmune diseases, such as thyroiditis and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), has been suggested. We report the case of a 28-year-old man with a diagnosis of NS and autoimmune hypothyroidism who developed symptoms and immunologic features of SLE.

CT diagnosis of chronic pulmonary thromboembolism.

Chronic pulmonary thromboembolism is mainly a consequence of incomplete resolution of pulmonary thromboembolism. Increased vascular resistance due to obstruction of the vascular bed leads to pulmonary hypertension. Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension is clearly more common than previously was thought, and misdiagnosis is common because patients often present with nonspecific symptoms related to pulmonary hypertension.

Seroprevalence of Bartonella spp. infection in HIV patients in Catalonia, Spain.

Background: Although the first clinical descriptions of Bartonella infection were associated with immunocompromised patient with bacillary angiomatosis, we currently know that this organism is directly involved in diseases affecting a large number of patients, regardless of their immune status. Cat scratch disease, hepatic peliosis, and some cases of bacteraemia and endocarditis, are directly caused by some species of the genus Bartonella. The purpose of this study was to determinate the prevalence of IgG antibodies against Bartonella henselae and B.

[Prognostic significance of hemoperitoneum in peritoneal dialysis].

According to previous reviews, hemoperitoneum episodes appear in 6.1-8.4% of the peritoneal dialysis patients, and they are severe in a 20% of them.

[Secondary amyloidosis (AA-type) due to localized cutaneous vasculitis].

We report a case of a 49 year old man, diagnosed soon after the outcome of casual proteinuria, of AA-type amyloidosis in relation to small and medium vessel cutaneous vasculitis without systemic involvement. This combination is a rare entity and only two cases of cutaneous hypersensibility vasculitis complicated with AA-type amyloidosis had been reported. We describe the results of the use of several immunosuppressive drugs during four years follow up with temporally total remission of the disease.