Pulmonary haemorrhage is a potentially life-threatening event that may occur in patients with pulmonary-renal syndromes. These syndromes have typically been thought to occur in small-vessel vasculitides, such as ANCA-mediated disease, Goodpasture's disease and other autoimmune conditions including systemic lupus erythematosus or anti-phospholipid antibody syndrome. Here, we present a rare cause...

Pulmonary torsion is a severe, life-threatening event, rarely occurring in children. We present a case of atypical postoperative complication of esophageal atresia repair in the form of pulmonary torsion comprising the middle lobe of the right lung. Clinical deterioration in the face of normal arterial blood gases should rise a high index of suspicion for pulmonary torsion. Early diagnosis is c...

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a delayed and/or protracted response to exceptionally threatening or catastrophic events. The event is persistently remembered or relived with concomitant distress sometimes even leading to harmful life-long psychological sequelae. We present a 6-year old boy who developed the classical syndrome following corporal punishment at school when his class teac...

Hemopericardium with cardiac tamponade after non-penetrating chest trauma is a very rare but life-threatening condition. If this complication develops after an interval of several weeks following the non-penetrating chest trauma, the causal relation with the traumatic event is less evident, which may delay proper diagnosis and adequate treatment. We describe diagnosing and therapeutic managemen...

Background. We report a case of familial hyperlipidemia in pregnancy that resulted in hemorrhagic pancreatitis. Case. A patient at 27-week gestation was admitted for recurrent pancreatitis secondary to severe hyperlipidemia. With conservative care, the patient improved but on the fourth day of admission she experienced a sudden onset of hypotension and was diagnosed with hemorrhagic pancreatiti...

DELIRIUM is increasingly recognized as a major adverse event occurring postoperatively in elderly surgical patients. Once the diagnosis has been established, the main goal of delirium therapy is to identify important, potentially life-threatening, treatable, organic causes responsible for this syndrome. The purpose of this clinical pathologic conference is to highlight key points essential for ...

Due to increasing reports of spironolactone associated life-threatening hyperkalemia, we implemented a rule in our automated event detection system to monitor serum potassium results in patients receiving spironolactone. In 2004, 419 (10.49%) of 3995 admissions at 3 BJC HealthCare hospitals were identified as having hyperkalemia while on spironolactone. For a 9-month period in one facility, 33 ...

Shwachman Diamond Syndrome is a rare congenital disorder characterized by pancreatic insufficiency, bone marrow dysfunction and skeletal abnormalities. No specific test is available for a definitive diagnosis for SDS. In the presence of clinical features of SDS, pancreatic insufficiency should be tested for or lipomatosis radiologically demonstrated. New directions might be found in genetic ana...

Knee dislocation is an uncommon, potentially limb-threatening, knee injury. Most often caused by high-velocity trauma, it can also result from low- or even ultra-low-velocity trauma. Rapid identification of the injury, reduction, and definitive management are necessary to minimize neurovascular damage. We present a case of rotatory anterolateral knee dislocation sustained during a twisting spor...

Acute vertebrobasilar artery occlusion is a life-threatening event, even after thrombolytic treatment with local intraarterial (IA) recombinant tissue plasminogen activator. We report a 70-year-old man with acute vertebral artery occlusion in which IA thrombolysis resulted in partial recanalisation and revealed pre-existing severe stenosis as the underlying cause. Stenosis was managed with sten...