1/60. Gastric adenocarcinoma presenting with persistent, mild gastrointestinal symptoms in pregnancy. A case report.BACKGROUND: Mild gastrointestinal symptoms are common during pregnancy but can also be the only symptoms in stomach cancer until the late stage. Clinicians' reluctance to pursue diagnostic studies appears to be a major contributing factor to delayed diagnosis and poor outcome. We report a case of maternal death to alert clinicians to this rare possibility. CASE: A 36-year-old woman had persistent, mild epigastric discomfort, nausea, vomiting and frequent episodes of dark stools since the second trimester of pregnancy. These were attributed to peptic ulcer and an iron supplement given, without investigation. gastroscopy was performed only at 32 weeks of gestation, when the patient had heavy hematemesis. biopsy confirmed the diagnosis of poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma of the stomach. cesarean section was performed after steroid therapy. Advanced stomach cancer with stomach perforation was found. Curative surgery was not possible. The patient died four weeks after delivery. CONCLUSION: stomach cancer is a rare complication of pregnancy. Delay in diagnosis is commonly due to clinicians' reluctance to request diagnostic studies and the nonspecific symptoms of the disease. Early recognition and diagnosis are the only possibilities for a better outcome. Clinicians must be alert to this possibility and include this in the differential diagnosis of minor gastrointestinal discomfort during pregnancy.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = cancer (Clic here for more details about this article) |
2/60. Late presentation of Bochdalek hernia: clinical and radiological aspects.Three infants with late presentation of Bochdalek hernia are presented. The presenting symptoms were cough, intermittent vomiting, dyspnea, and cyanosis. Initial diagnoses of isolated paravertebral mass and foreign material aspiration were made in two infants, based on plain chest x-ray findings and history of the patients. Further radiological investigations, such as contrast upper gastrointestinal series or enema, computerized tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging of the chest, suggested the diagnosis of Bochdalek hernia. The hernia was found on the left side in two patients and on the right side in one. At operation, the stomach, small intestine, and spleen were found as herniated organs in one patient, ascending colon in one, and all of the small intestine together with ascending colon in the other. A congenital diaphragmatic defect should be suspected in every child presenting with unusual respiratory or gastrointestinal symptoms and with abnormal chest x-ray findings. The radiological findings vary greatly from one case to another, and even in the same case at different times because of differences in herniated organs and intermittent spontaneous reduction. The possibility of congenital diaphragmatic hernia should be kept in mind to avoid a wrong diagnosis, undue delay in diagnosis, and inappropriate treatment.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.07619836743926keywords = spleen (Clic here for more details about this article) |
3/60. Serious adverse events associated with yellow fever 17DD vaccine in brazil: a report of two cases.BACKGROUND: The yellow fever vaccine is regarded as one of the safest attenuated virus vaccines, with few side-effects or adverse events. We report the occurrence of two fatal cases of haemorrhagic fever associated with yellow fever 17DD substrain vaccine in brazil. methods: We obtained epidemiological, serological, virological, pathological, immunocytochemical, and molecular biological data on the two cases to determine the cause of the illnesses. FINDINGS: The first case, in a 5-year-old white girl, was characterised by sudden onset of fever accompanied by headache, malaise, and vomiting 3 days after receiving yellow fever and measles-mumps-rubella vaccines. Afterwards she decompensated with icterus and haemorrhagic signs and died after a 5-day illness. The second patient-a 22-year-old black woman-developed a sore throat and fever accompanied by headache, myalgia, nausea, and vomiting 4 days after yellow fever vaccination. She then developed icterus, renal failure, and haemorrhagic diathesis, and died after 6 days of illness. yellow fever virus was recovered in suckling mice and C6/36 cells from blood in both cases, as well as from fragments of liver, spleen, skin, and heart from the first case and from these and other viscera fragments in case 2. RNA of yellow fever virus was identical to that previously described for 17D genomic sequences. IgM ELISA tests for yellow fever virus were negative in case 1 and positive in case 2; similar tests for dengue, hantaviruses, arenaviruses, leptospira, and hepatitis viruses A-D were negative. Tissue injuries from both patients were typical of wild-type yellow fever. INTERPRETATION: These serious and hitherto unknown complications of yellow fever vaccination are extremely rare, but the safety of yellow fever 17DD vaccine needs to be reviewed. Host factors, probably idiosyncratic reactions, might have had a substantial contributed to the unexpected outcome.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.07619836743926keywords = spleen (Clic here for more details about this article) |
4/60. Tumor-like presentation of multiple sclerosis.multiple sclerosis patients may present with clinical data suggestive of cerebral tumor, however, most of the lesions do not show expansive signs in computerized tomography of brain or magnetic resonance imaging. We report in this paper, 2 patients who had shown expansive radiological signs suggestive of neoplasm. Cerebral biopsy was an important diagnostic procedure in these 2 cases which revealed the diagnosis of demyelinating disease.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.0098905866314603keywords = neoplasm (Clic here for more details about this article) |
5/60. Abdominal cancer, nausea, and vomiting.nausea and vomiting in abdominal cancer is perhaps one of the most difficult symptom complexes to manage, especially when complicated by bowel obstruction. There are many mechanisms of nausea in advanced abdominal cancer with a number of therapeutic interventions that can significantly enhance symptom control and overall quality of life. As with pain, the ideal approach should include a mechanistic analysis of the causes of nausea beginning with a thorough history, followed by a directed physical examination, and selected laboratory studies. The symptom history, in conjunction with a physical examination and directed tests should direct appropriate pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions. The result is often the amelioration of significant suffering and enhanced quality of living.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 2keywords = cancer (Clic here for more details about this article) |
6/60. August 2001: Sellar/suprasellar mass in a 59-year-old woman.The August 2001 COM. Symptomatic granular cell tumors (GCTs) of the neurohypophysis are rare lesions. They are generally regarded as benign neoplasms, although detailed descriptions of the natural course of the tumors are limited to a few cases. We report on a 59-year-old woman with a large GCT of the neurohypophysis and rapid onset of symptoms. Although lacking definitive signs of malignancy, the tumor showed nuclear polymorphism, proliferative activity, evidence of a mutation of the tumor suppressor gene p53 as well as expression of the apoptosis-inhibiting protein bcl-2. These indices may be useful in defining more precisely the clinicopathological prognosis for neurohypophyseal GCTs.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.0098905866314603keywords = neoplasm (Clic here for more details about this article) |
7/60. Gastric adenocarcinoma associated with granulomatous gastritis. Case report and review of the literature.AIMS: We describe the fourth reported case of granulomatous gastritis associated with gastric adenocarcinoma, with a review of the literature and considerations about the prognostic implications of this association. RESULTS: A 48-year-old woman who had been suffering from gastritis for ten years was admitted to our institute for increasing left epigastric pain associated with vomiting. After an endoscopic biopsy had revealed an ulcerated signet ring cell carcinoma, the patient was submitted to subtotal gastrectomy with regional lymph node dissection. Pathological examination of the resected specimen revealed a superficial signet ring cell carcinoma (early cancer) associated with multiple granulomas. The granulomas, which were observed within the mucosa and the submucosa at the periphery of the carcinoma, were composed of CD68-positive, CD15-negative epithelioid and giant cells of the Langhans type, confirming their true histiocytic nature, and were also extensively found within the dissected lymph nodes. Since no ocular, skin, pulmonary or other gastrointestinal lesions were found and the granulomas were negative for acid-fast and fungal stain, a diagnosis of granulomatous gastritis was made. CONCLUSIONS: To the best of our knowledge this is the fourth example of gastric adenocarcinoma and granulomatous gastritis. These cases suggest an association between granulomatous gastritis and early gastric cancer.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.66666666666667keywords = cancer (Clic here for more details about this article) |
8/60. Palliative venting gastrostomy in malignant intestinal obstruction.This retrospective clinical study reports on the experience of palliative venting gastrostomy (PVG) in an integrated acute teaching hospital and hospice-based palliative care service over a seven-year period (1989-97). PVG was performed for 51 patients with refractory nausea and vomiting resulting from varying degrees and levels of persisting or intermittent malignant bowel obstruction. There were 32 females and 19 males; the mean age was 61 years (range 25-86 years). All patients had advanced and incurable cancer with intra-abdominal spread, originating from the following primary sites: colon and rectum (27), ovary (16), breast (2), pancreas (2), and other (4). The venting gastrostomy tube was inserted endoscopically by a railroading technique in 46 patients (using a 16- to 20-French Dobhoff PEG tube), at open laparotomy in four cases and under radiological (abdominal computerized tomography) control in one case. Endoscopic insertion was attempted and abandoned for technical reasons in a further two cases. The median survival of all 51 patients from the time of gastrostomy insertion was 17 days (range 1-190). In 47/51 (92%), the symptoms of nausea and vomiting were relieved by the procedure, and these patients experienced restoration of some level of oral soft food and fluid intake. Twenty patients were discharged home, and six died at home. In a small group of highly selected patients, for whom pharmacological measures failed to palliate the effects of malignant bowel obstruction, PVG was shown to be a safe and effective means of abolishing or substantially improving vomiting. Provided that the intervention is appropriate to the given clinical situation and acceptable to the patient, it should be considered.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.33333333333333keywords = cancer (Clic here for more details about this article) |
9/60. Migraine-type headaches in children receiving chemotherapy and ondansetron.Six children developed severe daily migraine-type headaches during cancer treatment. In addition to chemotherapy drugs, all received daily doses of ondansetron, a 5-hydroxytryptamine type 3 receptor antagonist. 5-Hydroxytryptamine is considered to play a central role in migraine pathogenesis, and ondansetron may have caused headaches by producing 5-hydroxytryptamine dysfunction in the brain. All six children had either a personal or a family history of migraine, and this may be a risk factor for developing ondansetron-associated migraine-type headaches. ondansetron-induced headaches respond to withholding the drug and to standard antimigraine medications, but further study of a larger group of patients is required to confirm this impression.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.33333333333333keywords = cancer (Clic here for more details about this article) |
10/60. Investigation into the usefulness and adverse events of CDDP, 5-fU and dl-leucovorin (PFL-therapy) for advanced colorectal cancer.Biochemical modulation of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) has been verified the evidence of significant improvement of survival and quality of life in patients with advanced colorectal carcinoma. We investigated the therapeutic and adverse drug reaction of intensive chemotherapy using cisplatin (CDDP), 5-FU and dl-leucovorin (LV) (PFL-therapy), which may be producing dual biochemical modulation effect of 5-FU for advanced colorectal carcinoma. Administration schedule was 13 mg/m2 of CDDP, 300 mg/m2 of 5-FU, and 30 mg/body of dl-LV for 5 consecutive days. This regimen was repeated at 3-week intervals in hospital. Sixteen patients were enrolled in this study, most of whom had a history of previous chemotherapy as adjuvant treatment, and the response rate was 25%, with four patients having "partial response" and eight "no change". In respect to performance status, 46% of patients who completed the protocol were markedly improved in spite of their poor performance status before treatment. Moreover, when patients were classified into two groups based on changes of the serum level of CEA, "responder in CEA level" showed better prognosis than "non-responder in CEA level". Major toxicities were nausea, hyperglycemia and neutropenia. Three patients experienced Grade 4 hematological side effect, but these complications resolved quickly in all patients except for one patient. PFL-therapy is effective for advanced colorectal cancer with large tumor burden and showed the same prognostic result as the American and European trials in spite of smaller number of treatment cycles and a history of previous chemotherapy. We will be able to demonstrate the usefulness of this regimen for Japanese patients with advanced colorectal cancers after adding new cases to the present report.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 2keywords = cancer (Clic here for more details about this article) |
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