Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae strain is a major cause of liver abscess and this bacteria has metastatic properties. This distinct liver abscess syndrome has been increasingly reported in Asia over the past two decades, but is emerging as a global disease. We described an 81-year-old lady, who presented to the emergency department with 1-week prior duration of fever and right eye swelling. She had been admitted for recurrent liver abscess prior to this. Hence, she was initially treated as sepsis secondary to recurrent liver abscess. Meanwhile, she was managed concurrently by ophthalmology team for endophtalmitis. Despite the initiation of treatment with antibiotics, she did not show any improvement and required right eye evisceration to treat the sepsis. Invasive liver abscess syndrome with metastatic endophthalmitis should be screened in patient with Klebsiella liver abscess. They should be monitored for ocular symptoms as early recognition can prohibit delays in treatment, which has debilitating consequences.
Klebsiella pneumoniae ; pyogenic liver abscess ; endophthalmitis ; invasive liver abscess syndrome ; opthalmology

Frantz’ tumour of the pancreas is also known as solid pseudopapillary tumour (SPT) of the pancreas. It is a rare pancreatic neoplasm and represents about 3% of all the pancreatic cystic neoplasm. It occurs predominantly in young woman in 2nd to 3rd decade of life. These tumours exhibit indolent behaviour and very often reach considerable size before the first symptoms appear. Despite this presentation these tumours have low malignant potential and complete surgical resection render excellent prognosis. We reported a case of a 16-year-old girl who presented with upper abdominal mass with symptoms of gastric outlet obstruction for 7 months duration. Clinical examination revealed a huge epigastric mass measuring 10 x 12 cm in size. CT scan showed presence of mass arising from the body of the pancreas which was hypervascular, well-encapsulated with mixed cystic and solid components. She then underwent successful distal pancreatectomy and splenectomy and recovered uneventfully.
Pancreatic Neoplasms

A number of protocols have been reported for efficient fungal DNA and RNA isolation. However, many of these methods are often designed for certain groups or morphological forms of fungi and, in some cases, are species dependent. In this report, we compared four published protocols for DNA isolation from a locally isolated oleaginous fungus, Cunninghamella bainieri strain 2a1. These protocols either involved the use of polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), hexacetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) or without using PVB or CTAB. For RNA isolation, we tested two published protocols, one of which is based on TRI REAGENT (Molecular Research Center, USA) and another is simple method employing phenol for RNA extraction and LiCl for precipitation. We found that the protocol involving the use of CTAB produced the highest genomic DNA yield with the best quality compared to other protocols. In the presence of CTAB, unwanted polysaccharides were removed and this method yielded an average amount of 816 ± 12.2 μg DNA/g mycelia with UV absorbance ratios A260/280 and A260/230 of 1.67 ± 0.64 and 1.97 ± 0.23, respectively. The genomic DNA isolated via this protocol is also suitable for PCR amplification and restriction enzyme digestion. As for RNA isolation, the method involving phenol extraction and LiCl precipitation produced the highest yield of RNA with an average amount of 372 ± 6.0 μg RNA/g mycelia. The RNA appears to be relatively pure since it has UV absorbance ratios A260/280 and A260/230 of 1.89 ± 2.00 and 1.99 ± 0.03, respectively. Finally, we have demonstrated that this method could produce RNA of sufficient quality for RT-PCR that amplified a 600 bp fragment of Δ12-fatty acid desaturase gene in C. bainieri.