Rinsho byori. The Japanese journal of clinical pathology
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Recently, musculoskeletal ultrasonography has been becoming more common for diagnosis and treatment by ultrasound-guided intervention in the field of orthopedics. Because musculoskeletal ultrasound technology has rapidly advanced in recent years, and has many advantages, including no exposure to radiation, non-invasive, wide availability, cost-effectiveness, and the ability to be used in real-time in the general outpatient clinic. Traditional radiography was not able to detect soft tissue injury, but musculoskeletal ultrasonography enables the diagnosis of not only musculoskeletal disorders including soft tissue injury, but also fractures by dynamic examination. The first choice of diagnostic imaging should begin to shift to musculoskeletal ultra-sound from traditional radiography.
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Echocardiography is a powerful noninvasive cardiovascular diagnostic tool. In the emergency room, an outpatient setting, and the intensive care unit, physician-performed point-of-care (POC) echocardiography is particularly important to understand the concurrent pathophysiology of unstable patients. In POC echocardiography, the purpose of examination should be clearly decided in advance by performing careful symptom assessment and physical examination, including heart and lung auscultation. ⋯ Papillary muscle rupture and ventricular septal perforation are both fatal complications of myocardial infarction, and they should be kept in mind and pan-systolic murmur should be detected before echocardiography. In acute pulmonary thromboembolism, the right heart size and characteristic wall motion abnormality should be focused on using echocardiography in addition to tricuspid regurgitant flow velocity measurement. Femoral vein ultrasonography with a compression test should be performed for all patients with acute pulmonary thromboembolism to search for potential embolic sources.
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The performance of ultrasound (US) devices is improving every year, and more advanced US is being conducted in laboratory settings with high-end machines. Meanwhile, portable US devices, which have become less expensive and of a higher quality, have come into widespread use at bedsides in emergency rooms, intensive care units, and general wards. ⋯ The findings are interpreted based on the vital signs, history, and physical examination during the scan, and the interpretations are rapidly applied for decision-making. In this article, we review the findings of lung US, which is one of the main fields in POCUS, as well as diagnoses and evaluations of pneumothorax and pulmonary edema in acute care settings.
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In this paper, abdominal ultrasound examination as a point-of-care examination (POCUS) is discussed. POCUS is very useful in various clinical situations, especially for the diagnosis of critically ill patients with non-specific symptoms. In patients with an unknown fever origin, POCUS can detect unexpected infection foci such as liver abscesses. ⋯ Urinary retention, often misdiagnosed as bowel obstruction or an abdominal tumor, is also easily diagnosed by POCUS. It is very difficult to detect the occult causes of exacerbation of the general condition and/or markedly abnormal laboratory data in critically ill patients under endotracheal intubation or the influence of sedative agents, which make it difficult for the patients to complain of their symptoms. Attending physicians should make the best of POCUS as a useful diagnostic modality for these patients.
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Connective tissue diseases are chronic inflammatory diseases that can affect multiple organs and, thus, have a broad spectrum of clinical presentations. Various autoantibodies are detected in patients with connective tissue diseases, represented by anti-nuclear antibody for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc), polymyositis/dermatomyositis (PM/DM), Sjögren's syndrome, and mixed connective tissue disease. Assessment of the autoantibody profile is fundamental for the clinical management of patients with connective tissue diseases, providing important data for the diagnosis, clinical characterization, and disease activity evaluation. ⋯ Between 50 and 75% of malignancy-associated DM patients are positive for anti-TIF1-γ antibody. Anti-RNA polymerase III antibody is associated with diffuse cutaneous SSc and renal crisis. This review focuses on the importance and usefulness of these autoantibodies for the diagnosis and management of patients with connective tissue diseases in clinical practice.