Cervical intramedullary cavernous angioma with MRI-proven haemorrhages

Summary Two contrasting cases of cervical intramedullary cavernous angioma in young female patients are reported. One patient had a 3-year course of step-wise progressive tetraparesis; at each of the five events intramedullary bleeding from a cryptic vascular malformation at C6–7 level was diagnosed by MRI. The other patient presented with one episode which led to MRI diagnosis of a vascular malformation at the C2 level. Both patients eventually underwent complete surgical excision of the angioma with subsequent steady improvement of the neurological deficit.     

Use of sonography to evaluate carotid atherosclerosis in the elderly. The Cardiovascular Health Study. CHS Collaborative Research Group

Carotid sonography is being performed on more than 5,000 participants in the Cardiovascular Health Study, a prospective, multicenter study of cardiovascular disease in men and women aged 65 years and older. The sonographic methods used to examine and measure the extracranial carotid arteries are described. Initial validation studies were performed on 61 subjects with a mean age of 68.6 years. Analysis of within- and between-sonographer differences and between-reader differences were performed for selected variables. In general, the mean absolute differences for within- and between-sonographer comparisons were small, with even less variability between readers. Variability was less for the common carotid artery than for the internal carotid artery. These data suggest that carotid sonography is a reliable and reproducible method for use in the study of carotid atherosclerosis in population studies.     

Bilateral anterior cerebral artery infarction resulting from explosion-type injury to the head and neck

A 43-year-old woman suffered a blast-type injury to the head and neck. She subsequently developed bilateral internal carotid artery occlusion and bilateral anterior cerebral artery infarction not demonstrated by magnetic resonance imaging scan 24 hours after the explosion, but confirmed by a second scan 8 days after the explosion. In patients with blast-type injury to the head and neck who develop coma with a nonfocal neurological exam, the possibility of bilateral carotid artery occlusion and bilateral ischemic infarction should be considered.     

Klebsiella pneumoniae liver abscess with septic endophthalmitis. The role of computed tomography

Klebsiella pneumoniae liver abscess associated with septic endophthalmitis is a rare observation. To our knowledge, only 10 cases have been reported in the international literature. We report a further case of complication occurring in an adult woman with hypothyroidism, and comment on the role of CT for the work-up.     

Characterization of a model of malaria in the pregnant host: Plasmodium berghei in the white rat

This study characterizes a Plasmodium berghei white rat model of P. falciparum malaria in the pregnant human. Seventy-day-old and 114-day-old female rats, given an infecting inoculum at time of mating, had higher parasitemias and a more severe anemia than age- and sex-matched controls. Under these experimental conditions, the parasitemia went to crisis in all animals and there were no fatal infections. In contrast, all animals died when the infection was initiated 7 days after conception, a timing that brought a coincidence of peak parasitemia and term. Pregnancy during the post-crisis subpatent period did not cause recrudescence. At the time of delivery, the parasitemia was consistently higher in the placental (crush smear) blood than in the peripheral (tail) blood. This difference was greatest in animals giving birth shortly before or 1-2 days after the parasitemic crisis. Very young, compact parasite forms predominated in the placental blood, whereas trophozoites predominated in the peripheral blood.