We read with great interest the well-written article by Tseng and Chen, 1 who described the case of a 65-year-old woman who presented with hemoptysis and a cavitary lesion in the right lung with an air crescent sign and an intracavitary fungus ball-like mass. The final diagnosis was lung carcinoma. The authors highlighted the importance of cavity wall thickness for the differential diagnosis, r...

Angioleiomyoma (vascular myoma) is a rare type of leiomyoma originating from smooth muscle cells and containing thick-walled vessels. There are only a few cases of retroperitoneal angioleiomyoma reported in the literature. Herein, we present the ultrasonography, magnetic resonance imaging and histopathological findings of an asymptomatic patient with a pelvic retroperitoneal angioleiomyoma whic...

Angiomyolipoma (AML) are benign tumours composed of varying amounts of thick-walled dysplastic blood vessels, smooth muscle and mature adipose tissue derived from epithelioid cells. We present a previously unreported occurrence of multi-focal pancreatic and hepatic AMLs in a patient and discuss the diagnostic and management difficulties associated with this rare disease. In addition relevant ca...

Cystic artery pseudoaneurysm (CAP) is a very rare complication of acute cholecystitis. We present the unruptured cystic artery pseudoaneurysm of an oedematous, thick-walled gallbladder in a 71-year old gentleman admitted with acute calculus cholecystitis. This was managed by radiological microcoil embolisation, percutaneous drainage of pericholic fluid and conservative treatment with antibiotics.

Fonsecaea pedrosoi is the main agent of chromoblastomycosis, a skin disease presenting verrucous lesions, in which round, thick-walled sclerotic cells are found. In vitro induction of sclerotic cells is time-consuming (20 to 45 days) and temperature dependent. We present two new natural media that reduce the sclerotic-cell induction time to only 2 days.

Corynebacterium group JK organisms were isolated from lung fluid aspirated with a fine needle from one of four thick-walled cavitary lesions in a 72-year-old female. Cultures and stains for mycobacteria and fungi were negative. The patient was successfully treated with an 8-week course of vancomycin.