The illness experience of an undocumented immigrant in the USA

Approximately 11 million people living and working in the USA do so without documentation. This group represents a disenfranchised minority with adverse experiences and unique comorbidities that faces significant obstacles to receiving healthcare, including fear of deportation, language barriers, financial barriers and difficulty navigating an inconsistent and fragmented system. Healthcare is therefore often sought once symptoms have become critical, which can lead to more severe disease processes and multiple new diagnoses at presentation even in previously healthy patients. Here we present the case of a previously healthy 32-year-old undocumented immigrant who presented to a South Florida hospital with abdominal pain, diarrhoea and leg pain. He was diagnosed with both diabetes mellitus and chronic myelogenous leukaemia after a prolonged 20-day hospital stay. Culturally sensitive providers and dedicated staff play a major role in connecting patients to outpatient care after an acute illness, which most often occurs at charity clinics.

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Suspicious Yersinia granulomatous enterocolitis mimicking appendicitis

We present the case of a fit and well 12-year-old boy who presented with signs and symptoms suggestive of appendicitis. On laparoscopy, he was found to have a sinister-looking right iliac fossa mass with associated mesenteric lymphadenopathy. He proceeded to have an oncological right hemicolectomy, while the subsequent histology returned an unexpected result. The aim of this report is to highlight an unusual and complex clinical presentation in a young patient presenting with right iliac fossa pain.

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Bivalirudin fails to prevent atrial thrombus development in heparin-induced thrombocytopaenia and thrombosis syndrome

An 81-year-old woman presented with acute decompensated heart failure due to new-onset atrial fibrillation and a flail myxomatous mitral valve which necessitated surgical mitral valve repair. No atrial thrombi were noted on transoesophageal echocardiograms performed prior to surgery and intraoperatively. Immediately postoperatively, while treated with unfractionated heparin, the patient developed thrombocytopaenia with positive platelet factor 4 antibodies and an abnormal serotonin functional platelet assay, consistent with heparin-induced thrombocytopaenia. The anticoagulation therapy was changed to the direct thrombin inhibitor bivalirudin with an improvement in the platelet count. Despite bivalirudin therapy, a left atrial layering thrombus was revealed on transoesophageal echocardiogram performed in preparation for cardioversion of the symptomatic atrial fibrillation. Anticoagulation was changed to warfarin, and the patient was discharged without thromboembolic complications neither during her hospital stay nor the 3-year outpatient follow-up.

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Disseminated tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis presenting as a tongue base mass

An 80-year-old woman presented with dysphagia, odynophagia and progressive weight loss. Initial investigations suggested a large base of tongue squamous cell carcinoma. At panendoscopy, biopsies were taken which revealed granulomatous inflammation with multinucleated giant cells and areas of caseous necrosis. Acid-fast bacilli were identified on Ziehl-Neelsen stain and the appearances were consistent with Mycobacterium bovis. Closer inspection of the patient's medical history revealed that she had previously undergone right hemicolectomy for an ascending colon stricture. The histology had shown granulomatous inflammation consistent with intestinal tuberculosis but no systemic treatment had been instigated at the time. This case highlights the importance of taking a detailed clinical history as well as the need to be cognisant of tuberculosis masquerading as cancer in the head and neck.

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Brown spots: Whats the diagnosis?

Description 

A 3-year-old boy presented to a paediatric consult with a rash consisting of reddish-brown non-pruritic spots. This rash initially appeared in his first months of age, with no identified triggers or associated symptoms and had been previously interpreted as eczema. Skin examination revealed irregularly bordered, hyperpigmented, cafe-au-lait macules on his trunk, neck and right forearm, the largest around 2 cm in diameter (figures 1 and 2). Rubbing one of the skin lesions elicited localised erythema—positive Darier's sign (figure 3).

Figure 1

Skin lesions on the trunk (back).

Figure 2

Skin lesions on the trunk (front).

Figure 3

Darier's sign.

Laboratory investigation showed both normal blood count and serum tryptase levels. He was diagnosed with urticaria pigmentosa (UP), a type of cutaneous mastocytosis. The patient...

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Preoperative embolisation of a hypervascular, calvarial paraganglioma metastasis via a combined percutaneous and transophthalmic arterial approach

Description 

A 30-year-old male patient with a history of malignant, metastatic paraganglioma presented with a rapidly enlarging, expansile left calvarial mass. CT and ultrasound imaging demonstrated a 60x46x31 mm soft-tissue lesion centred on the left frontal bone which was markedly hypervascular (figure 1A,B).

Figure 1

(A) non-contrast CT demonstrating the left-sided expansile calvarial lesion with osseous destruction and frontal lobe compression (black arrow). (B) Colour flow Doppler ultrasound of the lesion demonstrating pronounced hypervascularity (white arrows). (C) Lateral left external carotid artery DSA demonstrating extensive superficial scalp supply to the lesion from multiple, enlarged superficial temporal artery (black arrowheads) and occipital artery (white arrowheads) branches. (D) Lateral left internal carotid artery DSA demonstrating deep dural arterial supply to the lesion from the MMA (white arrowheads) originating from the ophthalmic artery (black arrowhead). DSA, digital subtraction angiogram; MMA, middle meningeal artery.

A cerebral digital...

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Rotational carotid insufficiency: an unusual cause of bow hunters syndrome

We report an unusual case in which physiologic neck rotation impeded perfusion through the internal carotid artery. The patient had a history of prior radical neck surgery and radiation for malignancy. He presented withbow hunter's-like symptoms with transient loss of consciousness and right-sided weakness with left lateral neck rotation. A self-expanding peripheral stent was successfully used to treat the patient by preventing rotatory carotid compression. In select patients with prior neck surgery and radiation, carotid injections should be part of a dynamic cerebral angiogram if the vertebral arteries are unremarkable.

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Hirschsprung’s Associated Enterocolitis (HAEC) Personalized Treatment with Probiotics Based on Gene Sequencing Analysis of the Fecal Microbiome

Approximately 40% of children with Hirschsprung's disease (HD) suffer from Hirschsprung's associated enterocolitis (HAEC) despite correct surgery. Disturbances of the intestinal microbiome may play a role. Treatment with probiotics based on individual analyses of the fecal microbiome has not been published for HD patients with recurrent HAEC yet. A boy with trisomy 21 received transanal pull-through at the age of 6 months for rectosigmoid HD. With four years, he suffered from recurrent episodes of HAEC. The fecal microbiome was measured during three healthy and three HAEC episodes by next-generation sequencing. The patient was started on daily probiotics for 3 months; the fecal microbiome was measured weekly. The fecal microbiome differed significantly between healthy and HAEC episodes. HAEC episodes were associated with significant decreases of Actinobacteria and significant increases of Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria. Probiotic treatment led to a significant increase of alpha diversity and a significant increase of Bifidobacterium and Streptococcus as well as decreases of Rikenellaceae, Pseudobutyrivibrio, Blautia, and Lachnospiraceae. A longitudinal observation of the microbiome has never been performed following correction of Hirschsprung's disease. Probiotic treatment significantly changed the fecal microbiome; the alterations were not limited to strains contained in the administered probiotics.

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