Recently noticed this claim. “NEW YORK (Reuters) – After relying on a pacemaker for 20 years, Carol Kasyjanski has become the first American recipient of a wireless pacemaker that allows her doctor to monitor her health from afar — over the Internet.” http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5790AK20090811 (Strangely it became a World first when taken up by Yahoo! http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090810/lf_nm_life/us_pacemaker_2) […]
Category: Cases in the news
A case of eyelash transplantation a first in the UK or not?
“A woman from Greater Manchester has become the first person in the UK to undergo an eyelash transplant, surgical teams have claimed. Louise Thomas, 19, from Stockport, had the treatment because she suffers from trichotillomania – obsessive plucking or pulling out hair.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8191440.stm The surgery was performed by a private cosmetic surgery firm, Transform, who […]
Case reports of cancer in children on TNF blockers
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is requiring the manufacturers of Tumour Necrosis Factor (TNF) blockers to update the Boxed Warning in the prescribing information to alert healthcare professionals of an increased risk of lymphoma and other malignancies in children and adolescents treated with TNF blockers. FDA ALERT [8/4/2009] The FDA analysed 48 cases […]
Aggressive Infantile Fibromatosis in an Iraqi child treated in the UK
The case of three-year-old Saif Basim with Agressive Infantile Fibromatosis is in the news this week. The young boy was flown from Iraq to be treated by British surgeons since the appropriate facilities were not available in Baghdad. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1204230/Iraqi-boy-smile-life-saving-surgery-UK-remove-tumour-face.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8188149.stm http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2571657/Iraqui-tumour-boys-first-smile.html Royal Jordanian airlines paid for the family’s flight to the UK but the British […]
Swine flu help line misses other serious conditions
A teenager was told he had swine flu after phoning the national helpline only to discover a few days later that his condition was a severe urinary tract infection. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/8184506.stm Whilst alarming this is a predictable drawback of telephone helplines in that it is more difficult to make a correct diagnosis over the telephone especially […]
The wonders of brain plasticity
A German girl born with a missing right hemisphere of her brain has baffled her doctors by having normal vision. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8159631.stm “[MRI] Scans on the girl showed that the retinal nerve fibres carrying visual information from the back of the eye which should have gone to the right hemisphere of the brain diverted to the […]
Orthopaedic surgeons move young woman’s heart
The BBC are carrying an interesting case report of a young woman with severe scoliosis. The deformity had shifted her mediastinum and heart to the right but, after corrective surgery, her symptoms of back pain and the heart shift have resolved. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8160522.stm “A spokeswoman for the Scoliosis Association said: ‘If scoliosis goes untreated, it will […]
Lancet reports girl feeling well and living after her heart is removed.
“Follow-up of Hannah Clark—who had a donor heart grafted onto her own after suffering heart failure as an infant—after having the transplanted heart removed, now aged 16.” is reported in The Lancet Lancet Online First 14th July 2009 This case report not only explores the surgical management of heart failure but also the immunology and […]
Biomed Central accepting case reports … again
“Following the recent departure of the Journal of Medical Case Reports from BioMed Central’s portfolio, the medical journals in the BMC series have started considering case reports again.” http://blogs.openaccesscentral.com/blogs/bmcblog/entry/submit_your_next_case_report1 It seems that case reports are among the most popular pages on the open-access journals website. This renaissance in publishing (and reading) case reports is very […]
Lantus rumours, share prices and IGF-1
Sanofi-aventis’s share price has been affected by rumours of a cancer risk with their insulin analogue Lantus. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLP34230220090625 The source of the rumour and whether it consists of case reports, population studies, or further in-vitro work is not known but there have been concerns about glargine before. It appears to stimulate IGF-1 receptors more than […]