Swiss medical weekly
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2015
Post-treatment surveillance of head and neck cancer: pitfalls in the interpretation of FDG PET-CT/MRI.
We investigated non-malignancy-associated (¹⁸F)fluoro-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) uptake in the head and neck cancer (HNC) post-treatment follow-up with positron emission tomography - computed tomography / magnetic resonance imaging (PET-CT/MRI). A retrospective study on HNC patients undergoing follow-up or re-staging PET-CT/MRI examinations was performed. Thereby, FDG-positive regions were morphologically correlated to the CT and MRI images and a statement regarding tumour persistence/recurrence. ⋯ Post-treatment follow-up of HNC patients requires interdisciplinary management and familiarity with the patient's past medical history. Awareness of common confounders of FDG positivity often allows clarification of indistinct lesions. However, a substantial number of approximately 12% of FDG-positive lesions remain unclear unless invasive diagnostic procedures are performed.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2015
Patients with an extraordinarily elevated serum ferritin: think of haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis.
We retrospectively analysed charts of patients with blood ferritin level >5000 µg/l. The aim of the study was to look for the likelihood of haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) in these patients. ⋯ HScore reflects a higher specificity than the algorithm for diagnosing HLH. The discrepancy may indicate the difficulty that a specific marker still is missing. Hyperferritinaemia was strongly associated with HLH in patients with haematological or oncological malignancies. HLH may be underdiagnosed because the majority of these patients suffer from a severe underlying disease, which easily might suggest a flare or infection. In this population, hyperferritinaemia and SIRS should rise suspicion because mortality in HLH is high.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2015
The effect of intra-articular injection of Diprospan at the knee joint on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
In this work we wanted to evaluate the effect of intra-articular injection (IAI) at the knee joint of 1 ml of Diprospan on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. ⋯ IAI at the knee joint of 1 ml of Diprospan was associated with a transient high rate of SAI.