Tuberculous spondylitis, or so-called Pott's disease, seems to be overlooked because of a lack of severe inflammation in the insidious generating process and tends to cause non-specific symptoms, such as back pain, fever, weakness, and weight loss. Diagnostic delay is common and the results can be disastrous. Discriminating between Pott's disease and other diseases, such as malignancy and pyogenic infection, is difficult. However, the inflammatory process in Pott's disease tends to spare the disk space, while that of pyogenic infection typically affects the area. Herein, we present a patient with Pott's disease who showed the characteristic clinical and radiological findings.

It is reported that myasthenia gravis (MG) with thymoma occupy 20% of all MG and extended thymectomy is recommended. After having operation, it is rare, but cases of recurrence of thymoma and, what is worse, thymic cancer from residual thymus tissue are reported. A 69-year-old man came to our hospital to have his dyspnea level examined. He had a past history of MG with thymoma and he had undergone extended thymectomy 17 years previously. Enhanced CT showed pericardial thickening and many tumors in the epicardium. Catheterization study showed dip and plateau pattern of left ventricular pressure. We therefore diagnosed constrictive pericarditis (CP). We performed pericardiectomy under cardiopulmonary bypass. He was discharged ambulatorily on postoperative day 24. Histological findings of the tumor and the pericardium showed that they were dissemination of thymic cancer. It was considered that thymic cancer caused CP and it was an extremely rare case. We think this is the first report to the best of our knowledge.

Cardiac Imaging Techniques ; Cohort Studies ; Cytidine Triphosphate ; Humans ; Image Enhancement ; Multidetector Computed Tomography ; Myocardial Perfusion Imaging ; Myocardium ; Perfusion Imaging ; Radiation Dosage ; Radiation Exposure ; Retrospective Studies

A 78-year-old woman who had a history of left deep venous thrombosis was referred to our hospital with a sudden hemoptysis. Thoracic computed tomography showed a solitary pulmonary nodule in the right lower lobe. Based on her medical history of deep venous thrombosis, she was tentatively diagnosed as having pulmonary embolism and successfully treated by inserting an inferior vena cava filter and anticoagulant therapy with warfarin [Please confirm whether previous sentence is correct]. However, the lung nodule on thoracic computed tomography was still depicted four months later. With suspicion of a malignant tumor, including possible lung cancer, a right segmentectomy was performed. Pathological assessment of the resected specimen showed the tumor was derived from the right bronchial wall, but was not ruptured into the intratracheal lumen, as well as coexistence with intraalveolar hemorrhage near the tumor. The lung nodule was diagnosed as bronchial schwannoma. Thus, the origin of the hemoptysis was found to be pulmonary embolism due to deep vein thrombosis, and not by bronchial schwannoma, which was also present in the lung.

OBJECTIVE: A recent study suggested that rs6504340, a polymorphism within the homeobox B (HOXB) gene cluster, is associated with the susceptibility for malocclusions in Europeans. The resulting malocclusions require orthodontic treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of rs6504340 and other dentition-implicated polymorphisms with dental and occlusal traits in Korean and Japanese populations. METHODS: The study participants included 223 unrelated Koreans from the Busan area and 256 unrelated Japanese individuals from the Tokyo metropolitan area. DNA samples were extracted from saliva specimens. Genotyping for rs6504340 and four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that have been shown to be associated with the timing of first tooth eruption and the number of teeth at 1 year of age (rs10506525, rs1956529, rs9674544, and rs8079702) was performed using TaqMan assays. The Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need (IOTN), overjet, overbite, arch length discrepancy, crown sizes, and length and width of the dental arches were measured. Spearman's correlation coefficients were calculated to evaluate relationships between rs6504340 and these dental/occlusal traits. RESULTS: We evaluated the aesthetic components and dental health components of the IOTN in the Korean and Japanese populations and found that neither rs6504340 nor the other four SNPs showed any association with dental and occlusal traits in these East Asian populations. CONCLUSIONS: These negative results suggest that further research is needed to identify the genetic determinants of malocclusions in order to reach a consensus.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group* ; Busan ; Consensus ; Crowns ; Dental Arch ; DNA ; Genes, Homeobox ; Genetics ; Humans ; Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need ; Malocclusion ; Multigene Family ; Overbite ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide ; Saliva ; Tooth Eruption* ; Tooth*