Percutaneous biopsy in evaluation of lung nodules.

Management of an indeterminate pulmonary nodule is a diagnostic challenge that commonly confronts primary care physicians and specialists. Patients often present with this radiographic finding in the course of an unrelated medical evaluation. We examined our institution's experience with percutaneous biopsy of lung nodules to determine the impact of this procedure on overall patient care. Although significant complications are uncommon, the expedience of percutaneous lung biopsy often supplants a surgical opinion prior to initiation of therapy without added diagnostic benefit or cost-savings. Hence, we caution practitioners to use this technique as an adjunct to diagnosis and not a substitute for multidisciplinary care.     

The attachments of the anteromedial and posterolateral fibre bundles of the anterior cruciate ligament

The tibial attachments of the individual anteromedial (AM) and posterolateral (PL) fibre bundles and the entire attachment of the anterior cruciate ligament are described, relating them to consistent bony landmarks; 55 fresh-frozen specimens were measured. The fibre bundles were separated and excised at their attachments and their peripheries marked with a pen. High-resolution scaled digital photographs were taken of each dissected specimen and transferred onto a computer for analysis. A wide variation was found when using the posterior tibial axis, the anterior tibial surface and the medial tibial spine as reference points. The most consistent measurements used the tibial interspinous “over-the-back” ridge as a datum. The attachments of the PL and AM bundles were centred 10 ± 1 mm (mean ± SD) and 17 ± 2 mm anterior to the over-the-back ridge. They were 4 ± 1 and 5 ± 1 mm, respectively, lateral to the medial tibial spine border. The positions of 6 mm circles in the posterior-medial limits of the fibre bundles (representing tunnels in a double-tunnel reconstruction) were measured. The overall dimensions of the tibial plateaux correlated significantly with many measurements. The results from this study could be used to guide ACL reconstruction techniques.     

Primary orthostatic tremor is an exaggeration of a physiological response to instability.

Primary orthostatic tremor (POT) is a rare disorder characterised by an intense sense of unsteadiness upon standing and a 16-Hz tremor in which the timing between tremor bursts in different muscles (unilateral and bilateral) remains constant. Hitherto, similar EMG activity has not been described in healthy subjects and it has been postulated that the oscillations seen in POT are primarily pathological. In this study, EMG was recorded from tibialis anterior in healthy subjects who were made unsteady through vestibular galvanic stimulation or leaning backwards. Under these conditions, a peak at approximately 16 Hz was seen in the coherence between the left and right tibialis anterior. This bilateral coherence was absent when the subjects activated the same muscles when not unsteady. These data indicate the existence of a physiological system involved in organising postural responses under circumstances of imbalance and characterised by a highly synchronised output at approximately 16 Hz. In addition, the results suggest that the core abnormality in POT may be an exaggerated sense of unsteadiness when standing still, which then elicits activity from a 16-Hz oscillator normally engaged in postural responses.     

Leukemia,lymphoma, and multiple myeloma following selected medical conditions

The role of selected prior medical conditions in the etiology of hematopoietic malignancies was examined in a case-control study of members of two regional branches of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program (USA). Past history of chronic infectious, autoimmune, allergic, and musculoskeletal disorders was abstracted from medical records for leukemia (n = 299), non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL, n = 100), and multiple myeloma (n = 175) cases and matched controls (n = 787). Little difference was found between cases and controls for most of the chronic conditions evaluated, including sinusitis, carbuncles, urinary tract infections, pelvic infections, herpes zoster, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, bursitis, and gout. Only three statistically significant elevated risks were found, i.e., with combined disc disease myeloma among patients with prior eczema and disk and other musculoskeletal conditions, and NHL following tuberculosis. Only two of these associations showed consistent patterns by sex and geographic region (myeloma with eczema and with musculoskeletal conditions). While prior history of eczema and musculoskeletal conditions may slightly increase risk of myeloma, this study provided little if any support for an association of chronic infectious, autoimmune, allergic, and musculoskeletal conditions with subsequent occurrence of the leukemias or NHL. Additionally, these data did not support a role for chronic antigenic stimulation, as defined in previous epidemiologic studies, in the etiology of hematopoietic malignancies.Ms Doody and Drs Linet, Pottern, Boice, and Fraumeni are with the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program, National Cancer Institute. Dr Glass is with the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, Northwest Region, Portland, Oregon, USA. Dr Friedman is with the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, Northern California Region, Oakland, California, USA. Address correspondence to Ms Doody, Radiation Epidemiology Branch, National Cancer Institute, Executive Plaza North, Room 408, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. This research was supported in part by National Cancer Institute contracts NO1-CP-01047, NO1-CP-01054, NO1-CP-11009, NO1-CP-11037, NO1-CP-31035, and NO1-CP-61006.