Faculty Bibliography

A case of polyhydramnion in early pregnancy diagnosed by ultrasounds is here discussed and shown for its rarity and its very interesting clinical experience

A 6-year-old girl with signs of a space occupying lesion had a CT scan compatible with a brain tumor. A preoperative hemogram revealed thrombocytopenia which was later proved to be due to ITP. Intracranial bleeding can rarely be the first manifestation of ITP. Early recognition of this situation aided by serial CT follow-up may lead to an improvement in the handling of these patients

It is not generally appreciated in the Western world that organophosphorus poisoning may be associated with a serious and often fatal cardiac complication: Q-T interval prolongation with malignant ventricular arrhythmias of the 'torsade de pointes' type. This insidious complication may lead to delayed, sudden death after the patients appears to be well on the way to recovery from the other, more dramatic respiratory and neurologic symptoms. In this study 15 patients with organophosphorus poisoning are described. Q-T prolongation was observed in 14 and malignant tachyarrhythmias in 6. In view of the dismal prognosis of these patients, ventricular pacing, previously used with success in other conditions associated with this syndrome, was tried in four patients and successfully shortened the Q-T interval and eliminated the arrhythmias. Isoproterenol did the same in a fifth patient. Awareness of this lethal, but preventable complication of organophosphorus poisoning is called for. Careful electrocardiographic monitoring is necessary until the Q-T interval returns to normal. Electrical pacing appears to be the treatment of choice for the tachyarrhythmias

The clinical and laboratory findings of 35 children with familial Mediterranean fever who developed amyloidosis are described. The types, frequency, and severity of attacks of familial Mediterranean fever in these children were no different from patients with this disease without amyloidosis. Although amyloid was widely deposited in all tissues, the major clinical manifestations of the amyloidosis were proteinuria, the nephrotic syndrome, and progressive renal failure. Only 20% of the patients were alive 5 years after the first appearance of proteinuria