Although vascular injuries associated with femoral intertrochanteric fractures have been reported infrequently, bleeding due to vascular injury can lead to severe complications that can be potentially life and limb-threatening. The authors report a case of an injury of the ascending branch of the lateral femoral convolutional artery in a patient who underwent surgical treatment for a femoral intertrochanteric fracture. Vascular injury occurred due to the sharp margin of displaced lesser trochanter five weeks after surgery. Percutaneous transcatheter embolization was done and improved without additional complications. Therefore, the surgeons need to be aware of possible associated vascular injuries caused by displaced lesser trochanter fragments in femoral intertrochanteric fractures.

A helical blade type of hip screw is used widely for the operative management of femoral trochanteric fractures. A 73-year-old female patient was admitted for femoral trochanteric fracture AO/OTA type 31A2.2. A helical blade locking sleeve dissembled 18 weeks after surgery did not achieve accurate reduction. The patient underwent bipolar hip hemiarthroplasty because the fracture reduction was lost, and it was impossible to remove the remaining helical blade without bone loss. The authors report this case of a rare complication of helical blade.

Background: Conventional diagnostic approaches for adrenal tumors require multi-step processes, including imaging studies and dynamic hormone tests. Therefore, this study aimed to discriminate adrenal tumors from a single blood sample based on the combination of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and machine learning algorithms in serum profiling of adrenal steroids. Methods: The LC-MS-based steroid profiling was applied to serum samples obtained from patients with nonfunctioning adenoma (NFA, n=73), Cushing’s syndrome (CS, n=30), and primary aldosteronism (PA, n=40) in a prospective multicenter study of adrenal disease. The decision tree (DT), random forest (RF), and extreme gradient boost (XGBoost) were performed to categorize the subtypes of adrenal tumors. Results: The CS group showed higher serum levels of 11-deoxycortisol than the NFA group, and increased levels of tetrahydrocortisone (THE), 20α-dihydrocortisol, and 6β-hydroxycortisol were found in the PA group. However, the CS group showed lower levels of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and its sulfate derivative (DHEA-S) than both the NFA and PA groups. Patients with PA expressed higher serum 18-hydroxycortisol and DHEA but lower THE than NFA patients. The balanced accuracies of DT, RF, and XGBoost for classifying each type were 78%, 96%, and 97%, respectively. In receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis for CS, XGBoost, and RF showed a significantly greater diagnostic power than the DT. However, in ROC analysis for PA, only RF exhibited better diagnostic performance than DT. Conclusion The combination of LC-MS-based steroid profiling with machine learning algorithms could be a promising one-step diagnostic approach for the classification of adrenal tumor subtypes.

Although vascular injuries associated with femoral intertrochanteric fractures have been reported infrequently, bleeding due to vascular injury can lead to severe complications that can be potentially life and limb-threatening. The authors report a case of an injury of the ascending branch of the lateral femoral convolutional artery in a patient who underwent surgical treatment for a femoral intertrochanteric fracture. Vascular injury occurred due to the sharp margin of displaced lesser trochanter five weeks after surgery. Percutaneous transcatheter embolization was done and improved without additional complications. Therefore, the surgeons need to be aware of possible associated vascular injuries caused by displaced lesser trochanter fragments in femoral intertrochanteric fractures.

A helical blade type of hip screw is used widely for the operative management of femoral trochanteric fractures. A 73-year-old female patient was admitted for femoral trochanteric fracture AO/OTA type 31A2.2. A helical blade locking sleeve dissembled 18 weeks after surgery did not achieve accurate reduction. The patient underwent bipolar hip hemiarthroplasty because the fracture reduction was lost, and it was impossible to remove the remaining helical blade without bone loss. The authors report this case of a rare complication of helical blade.

Many previous studies have shown reduced glucose uptake in the ischemic brain. In contrast, in a permanent unilateral common carotid artery occlusion (UCCAO) mouse model, our pilot experiments using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG PET) revealed that a subset of mice exhibited conspicuously high uptake of glucose in the ipsilateral hemisphere at 1 week post-occlusion (asymmetric group), whereas other mice showed symmetric uptake in both hemispheres (symmetric group). Thus, we aimed to understand the discrepancy between the two groups. Cerebral blood flow and histological/metabolic changes were analyzed using laser Doppler flowmetry and immunohistochemistry/Western blotting, respectively. Contrary to the increased glucose uptake observed in the ischemic cerebral hemisphere on FDG PET (p<0.001), cerebral blood flow tended to be lower in the asymmetric group than in the symmetric group (right to left ratio [%], 36.4±21.8 vs. 58.0±24.8, p=0.059). Neuronal death was observed only in the ischemic hemisphere of the asymmetric group. In contrast, astrocytes were more activated in the asymmetric group than in the symmetric group (p<0.05). Glucose transporter-1, and monocarboxylate transporter-1 were also upregulated in the asymmetric group, compared with the symmetric group (p<0.05, respectively). These results suggest that the increased FDG uptake was associated with relatively severe ischemia, and glucose transporter-1 upregulation and astrocyte activation. Glucose metabolism may thus be a compensatory mechanism in the moderately severe ischemic brain.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Thrombectomy within 24 hours can improve outcomes in selected patients with a clinical-infarct mismatch. We devised an easy-to-use visual estimation tool that allows infarct volume estimation in centers with limited resources. METHODS: We identified 1,031 patients with cardioembolic or large-artery atherosclerosis infarction on diffusion-weighted images (DWIs) obtained before recanalization therapy and within 24 hours of onset, and occlusion of the internal carotid or middle cerebral artery. Acute DWIs were mapped onto a standard template and used to create visual reference maps with known lesion volumes, which were then used in a validation study (with 130 cases) against software estimates of infarct volume. RESULTS: The DWI reference map chart comprises 144 maps corresponding to 12 different infarct volumes (0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19 mL) in each of 12 template slices (Montreal Neurological Institute z-axis –15 to 51 mm). Infarct volume in a patient is estimated by selecting a slice with a similar infarct size at the corresponding z-axis level on the reference maps and then adding up over all slices. The method yielded good correlations to software volumetrics and was easily learned by both experienced and junior physicians, with approximately 1 to 2 minutes spent per case. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for detecting threshold infarct volumes ( < 21, < 31, and < 51 mL) were very high (all about >90%). CONCLUSIONS: We developed easy-to-use reference maps that allow prompt and reliable visual estimation of infarct volumes for triaging patients to thrombectomy in acute stroke.
Atherosclerosis ; Cerebral Infarction ; Decision Making ; Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Humans ; Infarction ; Medical Staff, Hospital ; Methods ; Middle Cerebral Artery ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Stroke ; Thrombectomy

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to compare clinical features between Mycoplasma pneumonia and viral pneumonia. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of 428 patients requiring hospitalization among children younger than 18 years of age in 5 hospitals in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. There were 131 patients with M. pneumonia and virus coinfection, 167 patients with M. pneumonia without virus coinfection, and 130 patients with viral pneumonia. All subjects had radiographic evidence of pneumonia with specimens available for both M. pneumonia and viral testing. Virus was identified using the polymerase chain reaction assay in a nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swab. M. pneumoniae pneumonia was diagnosed serologically. RESULTS: Human rhinovirus was detected in 60.3% (79 of 131) of children with M. pneumonia accompanied by virus coinfection. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) was detected in 38.2% (50 of 130) of children with viral pneumonia. The mean age was significantly lower in the viral pneumonia group than in the M. pneumonia group with and without virus coinfection. The sex distribution did not differ significantly among the 3 study groups. The procalcitonin level was higher in viral pneumonia and erythrocyte sedimentation rate level was higher in the M. pneumonia group although no significant difference was found in C-reactive protein level between the M. pneumonia and viral pneumonia groups. CONCLUSION: Clinical features and inflammatory markers between M. pneumonia and viral pneumonia may be useful for the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia.
Blood Sedimentation ; C-Reactive Protein ; Child* ; Coinfection ; Cross-Sectional Studies* ; Gyeonggi-do ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Medical Records ; Mycoplasma* ; Pneumonia ; Pneumonia, Mycoplasma* ; Pneumonia, Viral ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Respiratory Syncytial Viruses ; Retrospective Studies ; Rhinovirus ; Seoul ; Sex Distribution

A number of concomitant conditions and cardiovascular diseases are closely related to the development of atrial fibrillation (AF), AF recurrence, and AF-associated complications. Detection, prevention, and treatment of such conditions are essential for the prevention of AF and its disease burden. This article discusses the clinical conditions and concomitant diseases associated with AF including heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, chronic respiratory diseases, and kidney disease based on the 2016 European Society of Cardiology guidelines for the management of AF and recently updated clinical data, particularly in patients with heart failure. Furthermore, we provide recommendations for the prevention, diagnosis, and management of these conditions.
Atrial Fibrillation* ; Cardiology ; Cardiovascular Diseases* ; Comorbidity ; Diagnosis ; Heart Failure ; Heart* ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Kidney Diseases ; Obesity ; Recurrence ; Risk Factors*