Rejected

X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) is a rare X-linked dominant metabolic bone disease, often diagnosed in childhood but causing increasing physical debilitation and pain in adulthood. Physical comorbidities of XLH in adulthood include pervasive and early-onset degenerative arthritis, mineralizing enthesophytes and osteophytes, osteomalacia and pseudofracture, dental abscesses, and hearing loss.

On February 22, 2017, Hospital X-Kampala and US CDC-Kenya reported to the Uganda Ministry of Health a respiratory illness in a 46-year-old expatriate of Company A. The patient, Mr. A, was evacuated from Uganda to Kenya and died. He had recently been exposed to dromedary camels (MERS-CoV) and wild birds with influenza A (H5N6). We investigated the cause of illness, transmission, and recommended control. We defined a suspected case of severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) as acute onset of fever (≥38°C) with sore throat or cough and at least one of the following: headache, lethargy, or difficulty in breathing. In addition, we looked at cases with onset between February 1 and March 31 in a person with a history of contact with Mr. A, his family, or other Company A employees. A confirmed case was defined as a suspected case with laboratory confirmation of the same pathogen detected in Mr. A. Influenza-like illness was defined as onset of fever (≥38°C) and cough or sore throat in a Uganda contact, and as fever (≥38°C) and cough lasting less than 10 days in a Kenya contact. We collected Mr. A's exposure and clinical history, searched for cases, and traced contacts. Specimens from the index case were tested for complete blood count, liver function tests, plasma chemistry, Influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, and MERS-CoV. Robust field epidemiology, laboratory capacity, and cross-border communication enabled investigation.

Anesthetic management of patients with pericardial tamponade is challenging. A 65-year-old man diagnosed with small-cell lung carcinoma and bilateral malignant pleural effusion in the lungs and pericardial effusion was scheduled for pericardial-window-opening surgery. The severely compromised lung function of the patient led to an anesthetic plan of ultrasound-guided serratus anterior plane block combined with an intercostal block. Although serratus plane block was initially developed for postoperative analgesia, we have shown here that it can be used under deep sedation in combination with an intercostal block for anesthesia for surgeries involving the hemithorax; the block may be promising in high-risk cases.

Clostridium difficile colitis has been the most recognized bacterial enterocolitis for years and other bacteria such as Staphylococcus colitis has been relegated. Staphylococcus enterocolitis following antibiotics had been one of the most frequent complications in surgical patients in the 1950s and 1960s and now reappear with more resistance such as methicillin-resistant(MRSA) colitis which brings a new challenge. A 32-year-old Hispanic female with a history of type I diabetes mellitus presenting with altered sensorium and a 2-day history of watery, nonbloody diarrhea, intractable emesis, and diffuse crampy abdominal pain. About a month before the presentation, the patient had a soft-tissue laceration on the left foot requiring a 7-day course of cephalexin and clindamycin that healed appropriately. On physical examination, she was tachycardic with heart rate of 110 bpm and tachypneic with respiratory rate of 28, somnolent but arousable with the Glasgow Coma Scale >12. The abdomen was soft, tender diffusely to palpation without rebound or guarding. On the biochemical analysis, her blood glucose was 968 mg/dL with anion gap metabolic acidosis (AG 46). In the intensive care unit, she initiated on intravenous (IV) fluids, insulin, and IV antibiotics for suspicion of colitis. Clostridium difficile testing was negative, but stool cultures grew MRSA for which she was started on vancomycin and TMP-SMX. Due to continued abdominal pain on antibiotics, computed tomography of the abdomen with contrast showed acute appendicitis with inflammatory debris and without perforation or abscess requiring laparoscopic appendectomy. Our case presented with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), which complicates the etiology of abdominal pain on admission for the clinician masking-MRSA colitis associated with a rare complication of appendicitis double challenge and difficult to diagnose as most DKA patients present with abdominal pain. This is the first case report describing MRSA enterocolitis in patient with DKA complicated by acute appendicitis.

We report a case of a young woman with no cardiac history who presented with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and ST-segment elevation on the electrocardiogram. The cardiac arrest initially was suspected to be secondary to coronary artery disease. Further history was taken from a relative who said that the patient had a severe headache before the cardiac arrest. It was subsequenly found on computed tomography of the head that the patient had infratentorial subarachnoid hemorrhage and diffurse brain edema. The management of course was totally different from what was contemplated initially. This case illustrates that ST-segment elevation can be caused by other conditions besides on occlusive thrombus in the coronary arteries.

Mucosal contact headache is a referred pain that arises from contact between the nasal septum and the lateral nasal wall. Evidence supports the role of substance P in a contact headache such that release of substance P from sensory nerve endings causes inflammation and allergy.

A 21-year-old, active duty male sustained an irreducible, complex Lisfranc fracture-dislocation with distal extrusion of his intermediate cuneiform. He was treated in a staged manner with external fixator placement, followed by an extended midfoot fusion with autograft bone. At 19 months, he could perform all activities of daily living independently with minimal pain using an Intrepid Dynamic Exoskeletal Orthosis.

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease with high impact on patients´ quality of life (QoL). The Rheumatoid Arthritis Quality of Life Questionnaire (RAQoL) is a self-completed questionnaire designed to assess QoL in patients with RA. A Portuguese adaptation of the RAQoL was available but required formal validation.

Explosive blast-induced traumatic brain injury (blast-TBI) in military personnel is a leading cause of injury and persistent neurological abnormalities, including chronic pain. We previously demonstrated that chronic pain after spinal cord injury results from central sensitization in the posterior thalamus (PO). The presence of persistent headaches and back pain in veterans with blast-TBI suggests a similar involvement of thalamic sensitization. Here, we tested the hypothesis that pain after blast-TBI is associated with abnormal increases in activity of neurons in PO thalamus. We developed a novel model with two unique features: (1) blast-TBI was performed in awake, un-anesthetized rats, to simulate the human experience and to eliminate confounds of anesthesia and surgery inherent in other models; (2) only the cranium, rather than the entire body, was exposed to a collimated blast wave, with the blast wave striking the posterior cranium in the region of the occipital crest and foramen magnum. Three weeks after blast-TBI, rats developed persistent, ongoing spontaneous pain. Contrary to our hypothesis, we found no significant differences in the activity of PO neurons, or of neurons in the spinal trigeminal nucleus. There were also no significant changes in gliosis in either of these structures. This novel model will allow future studies on the pathophysiology of chronic pain after blast-TBI.

Physical exercise has been established as a low-cost, safe, and effective way to manage chronic intractable pain. We investigated the underlying mechanisms of exercise-induced hypoalgesia (EIH) using a mouse model of neuropathic pain (NPP). Epigenetic changes in activated microglia and maintained GABA synthesis in the spinal dorsal horn may contribute to EIH. Voluntary exercise (VE), a strong reward for animals, also induced EIH, which may be due in part to the activation of dopamine (DA) neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA). VE increases the expression of pCREB in dopaminergic neurons in the VTA, which would enhance dopamine production, and thereby contributes to the activation of the mesolimbic reward system in NPP model mice. We demonstrated that neurons in the laterodorsal tegmental and pedunculopontine tegmental nuclei, a major input source of rewarding stimuli to the VTA, were activated by exercise. Chronic pain is at least partly attributed to sedentary and inactive lifestyle as indicated by the Fear-avoidance model. Therefore, chronic pain could be recognized as a lifestyle-related disease. Physical activity/inactivity may be determined by genetic/epigenetic and neural factors encoded in our brain. The hypothalamus and reward system is closely related in the axis of food intake, energy metabolism and physical activity. Understanding the interactions between the mesolimbic DA system and the hypothalamus that sense and regulate energy balance is thus of significant importance. For example, proopiomelanocortin neurons and melanocortin 4 receptors may play a role in connecting these two systems. Therefore, in a certain sense, chronic pain and obesity may share common behavioral and neural pathology, i.e. physical inactivity, as a result of inactivation of the mesolimbic DA system. Exercise and increasing physical activity in daily life may be important in treating and preventing chronic pain, a life-style related disease.