Adrenocortical carcinoma and sudden death

A 26-year-old man who presented with a 2-year history of intermittent gynecomastia with recent onset of fever, night sweats, and abdominal distension was found to have a left-sided adrenocortical carcinoma with metastases to the liver and spine. Sudden death occurred 1 month after his presentation. At autopsy a saddle pulmonary thromboembolus was found occluding the pulmonary outflow tract, with smaller more peripheral pulmonary thromboemboli. No tumor deposits were identified in the thromboemboli. The thromboemboli had arisen from a tongue of tumor that had grown through the left adrenal vein into the inferior vena cava. Despite a high rate of angio-invasion there are very few reports of sudden death resulting from this phenomenon in patients with adrenocortical carcinoma.     

Activity of some naphthoquinones on blood stream forms of Trypanosoma cruzi

Accidental transmission of Chagas disease to man by blood transfusion is a serious problem in Latin America. This paper describes the testing of several naphthoquinones, some of which were active against blood trypomastigotes in vitro at 4 degrees C and might therefore warrant further study for preventing transmission of Chagas disease by blood transfusion.     

Risk of Clostridium difficile-associated disease among patients receiving proton-pump inhibitors in a Quebec medical intensive care unit.

Our study was conducted to determine whether use of gastric acid-suppressive agents increased the risk of Clostridium difficile-associated disease (CDAD) in a medical intensive care unit of one of the first hospitals to be threatened by the current CDAD epidemic in Quebec, Canada. Our findings suggest that efforts to determine risk factors for CDAD should focus on other areas, such as older age and antibiotic use.     

Cell transplantation to improve ventricular function in the failing heart

Current therapies for congestive heart failure are limited in efficacy or in applicability. Cardiac cell transplantation offers a novel therapeutic approach to improve heart function. Although significant progress has been made over the past decade in the development of cell transplantation, only recently have investigators studied the changes in ventricular function following cell transplantation. This review article describes the latest research developments, evaluates recent studies of ventricular function after cell transplantation, and discusses the future directions of cell transplantation as a new therapy to ‘repair broken hearts’.