Acute pancreatitis combined with acute Budd-Chiari syndrome as the initial manifestation of small cell lung cancer.

Tumor metastasis to the pancreas is a rare but recognized cause of acute pancreatitis. Autopsy series have reported a 24-40% of pancreatic involvement in small cell lung cancer. However, only a very few cases of tumor-induced acute pancreatitis have been described. Budd-Chiari syndrome complicating lung cancer is a rarely reported condition. We report a 68-year-old woman with extensive small cell lung cancer with the unusual initial presentation of both acute pancreatitis and acute Budd-Chiari syndrome. This patient suffered from progressive epigastralgia for 3 weeks. Severe epigastralgia with radiation to back and progressive jaundice developed 2 days prior to admission. After admission, the liver enlarged rapidly and the ascites increased markedly. Chest roentgenogram showed a mass lesion over the left lower lung field. Poorly differentiated carcinoma cells were found in ascites and bone marrow. The patient died on the ninth day of hospitalization before chemotherapy was initiated. Prompt diagnosis of extensive-stage small cell lung cancer may allow early chemotherapy treatment which favorably influences recovery when the pancreatitis is mild. Although prolonged survival might have been expected had this patient recovered from pancreatitis and received chemotherapy, diagnosis was delayed due to difficulty in immunohistochemical diagnosis of the tumor and the unusual clinical presentation. The use of stains employing antibodies against neurofilament and neuron-specific enolase cell antigens is important for early diagnosis of poorly differentiated metastatic tumor cells.     

Pneumocephalus after thoracoscopic excision of posterior mediastinal tumor.

Pneumocephalus is a very rare complication of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS). A 66-year-old man developed pneumocephalus secondary to thoracoscopic excision of a neurogenic tumor in the posterior mediastinum. Pneumocephalus was diagnosed by brain computed tomography. Neurosurgical intervention was performed after conservative therapy had failed. The patient's condition had resolved without any neurologic sequelae 2 years later. When a patient has a relatively large amount of chest tube drainage and neurologic symptoms after VATS, the possibility of pneumocephalus due to cerebrospinal fluid leakage must be considered.     

Fat and water separation in balanced steady-state free precession using the Dixon method.

In this work the feasibility of separating fat and water signals using the balanced steady-state free precession (SSFP) technique is demonstrated. The technique is based on the observation (Scheffler and Hennig, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 2003;49:395-397) that at the nominal values of TE = TR/2 in SSFP imaging, phase coherence can be achieved at essentially only two orientations (0 degrees and 180 degrees ) relative to the RF pulses in the rotating frame, under the assumption of TR < T2, and independently of the SSFP angle. This property allows in-phase and out-of-phase SSFP images to be obtained by proper choices of the center frequency offset, and thus allows the Dixon subtraction method to be utilized for effective fat-water separation. The TR and frequency offset for optimal fat-water separation are derived from theories. Experimental results from healthy subjects, using a 3.0 Tesla system, show that nearly complete fat suppression can be accomplished.     

~(125)Ⅰ眼镜蛇毒及抗眼镜蛇毒血清在小白鼠体内分布的比较观察

用氯胺-T法125I标记眼镜蛇毒示踪液及抗眼镜蛇毒血清。小白鼠分二组，用125I-眼镜蛇毒、125I-抗眼镜蛇毒血清分别给小白鼠尾静脉注射，于注射后的不同时间测定血、颈部肌肉、肝、肺、肾、心等脏器放射性分布。结果发现：125I-眼镜蛇毒在肌肉及肝、肺等器官中于注射后2小时过高峰，在肾脏中浓度高，在脑未见放射性分布，抗眼镜蛇毒血清与眼镜蛇毒分布相似但在肌肉及肺脏有更高的分布。证明抗眼镜蛇毒血清能跟踪分布眼镜蛇毒。     

Distribution of rat facial motoneurons and its reorganization following nerve reinnervation]

OBJECTIVE: To examine the distribution of rat facial motoneurons contributing different branches under normal situation and when nerve reinnervation occurred following facial nerve axotomy. METHODS: The normal distribution of motoneurons innervated both buccal and marginal mandibular branches and its reorganization after facial nerve reinnervation was observed using retrograde labeling with fluorescein. RESULTS: Under normal situation, the motoneurons contributing buccall and marginal mandibular branches were primarily distributed in the intermedial and lateral subnucleus in facial nucleus and almost completely overlapped. The two types labeled neurons organized closely, but there were no double-labeled neurons. Although the motoneurons contributing buccall and marginal mandibular branches were primarily overlapped 4 month post-anastomosis, the number of the labeled neurons obviously decreased and the organization got more scattered. There were 10% of buccall branches, 5% of marginal mandibular motoneurons in the dorsal subnuleus, 1% of buccall and 4% of marginal mandibular in dorsal ventral and medial subnucleus. The distribution pattern of the motoneurons 6 month post-anastomosis was similar to that of 4 month post-anastomosis, but the number of the labeled neurons increased, and there were 1%-2% double-labeled neurons. CONCLUSION: The distribution pattern of motoneurons innervated both buccal and marginal mandibular branches indicates that it should exist wide-spread communicating branches, and its reorganization after facial nerve reinnervation suggests that misdirected regeneration occurs among motoneurons innervating different branches.