Isolated renal aspergilloma.

Aspergilloma localised solely to the kidneys is very rare and poses diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. We present the case of a 35-year-old male with a background of urolithiasis, type II diabetes and chronic kidney disease, who was found to have isolated renal aspergilloma associated with obstructing uric acid renal tract calculi. After poor progress to clear the fungal infection and remaining stones with ureteroscopy, he was successfully treated by percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) to surgically remove fungal balls and calculi. Additionally, he was treated with peri-operative oral and systemic antifungals and post-operative irrigation of the renal collecting system with amphotericin.

Rare case of spontaneous rupture of renal artery secondary to wegner granulomatosis.

This case report presents an uncommon instance of spontaneous rupture of the renal artery due to Wegner Granulomatosis which is an infrequent autoimmune disorder distinguished by the presence of granulomatous inflammation, primarily impacting the upper and lower respiratory tracts, along with renal involvement. The occurrence of spontaneous renal artery rupture in patients with Wegener's granulomatosis is a rare complication, as evidenced by the limited number of reported cases in the existing literature. The present case underscores the difficulties associated with the diagnosis and treatment of an uncommon complication while emphasizing the significance of timely intervention in achieving a positive outcome.

A Unique Case of Facial Hypervascularity Responding to Pulsed-Dye Laser.

Facial hypervascularity is a condition that manifests as erythema and edema caused by aberrant blood vessels. Often, the cause of these abnormal blood vessels can be attributed to previous trauma or vascular conditions such as rosacea, although sometimes the cause is unknown. Pulsed dye laser (PDL) can be an effective treatment even when the cause is unknown. We present a case of a 24-year-old male presenting with intermittent swelling, redness, and throbbing sensations of the nose and cheeks for the past five years. Physical examination was notable for prominent erythema and swelling of the nasal skin and mild erythema on the cheeks. He underwent treatment with PDL and achieved complete resolution of his symptoms. This case illustrates the effectiveness of PDL in the treatment of facial hypervascularity.

Fixed Drug Eruption: An Underrecognized Cutaneous Manifestation of a Drug Reaction in the Primary Care Setting.

Fixed drug eruptions (FDEs) are dermatological manifestations of drug reactions that often occur in the same location upon re-exposure to a drug. They usually appear as erythematous-violaceous, circular patches, but several different variants have been described. They can often present without any associated symptoms, but in some cases, patients may complain of pain and pruritus. The lesions are often underdiagnosed or mistaken for insect bites, urticaria, or erythema multiforme; thus, an effort to bring awareness to this condition is warranted. We present a 33-year-old African-American female who presented to the urgent care presenting with several violaceous patches of varying sizes that started two days ago. The lesions were located on the left shoulder, abdomen, right flank region, and behind the right knee. The lesions were associated with mild pain and pruritus. She believed she was bit by insects but denied seeing any insects at home or participating in any recent outdoor activities. She stated that she had a similar rash in the exact locations five months ago. Upon survey of new medications, she stated that she recently started taking her medications again, which include: hydrochlorothiazide, semaglutide, vitamin D supplement, and ibuprofen. Examination of the skin revealed several black, non-blanching macules with a surrounding ring of erythema on the left shoulder (3 x 3cm), abdomen (4 x 3cm), right popliteal region (3 x 2cm), and right flank region (6 x 7 cm). She was prescribed a medium-dose topical steroid cream to apply to the skin twice a day to decrease the intensity of the inflammatory reaction and thus relieve her symptoms. She was also educated on FDEs and was advised to discontinue Ibuprofen, one of the most commonly implicated drugs in FDEs. Upon returning for a follow-up four weeks later, she noted that she discontinued Ibuprofen, and her cutaneous reactions had fully resolved. This case illustrates the prompt and accurate diagnosis of FDE leading to discontinuation of the offending drug and resolution of symptoms. It also represents the essential questions to ask when suspecting FDE.

Hallway Gait Monitoring System Using an In-Package Integrated Dielectric Lens Paired with a mm-Wave Radar.

This paper presents a novel hallway gait extraction system that enables an individual's spatiotemporal gait parameter extraction at each gait cycle using a single FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) radar. The purpose of the proposed system is to detect changes in gait that may be the signs of changes in mobility, cognition, and frailty, particularly for older adults in retirement homes. We believe that one of the straightforward applications for gait monitoring using radars is in corridors and hallways, which are commonly available in most retirement and long-term care homes. To achieve in-corridor coverage, we designed an in-package hyperbola-based lens antenna integrated with a radar module package empowered by our fast and easy-to-implement gait extraction method. We validated system functionality by capturing spatiotemporal gait values (e.g., speed, step points, step time, step length, and step count) of people walking in a hallway. The results achieved in this work pave the way to explore the use of stand-alone radar-based sensors in long hallways in retirement apartment buildings or individual's homes for use in day-to-day long-term monitoring of gait parameters of older adults.

Non-Invasive Real-Time Monitoring of Glucose Level Using Novel Microwave Biosensor Based on Triple-Pole CSRR.

Planar microwave sensors are considered an attractive choice to noninvasively probe the dielectric attributes of biological tissues due to their low cost, simple fabrication, miniature scale, and minimum risk to human health. This paper develops and measures a novel microwave biosensor for non-invasive real-time monitoring of glucose level. The design comprises a rectangular plexiglass channel integrated on a triple-pole complementary split ring resonator (TP-CSRR). The proposed sensor operates in the centimeter-wave range 1-6 GHz and is manufactured using PCB on top of an FR4 dielectric substrate. The sensor elements are excited via a coupled microstrip transmission-line etched on the bottom side of the substrate. The integrated CSRR-based sensor is used as a near-field probe to non-invasively monitor the glucose level changes in the blood mimicking solutions of clinically relevant concentrations to Type-2 normal diabetes (70-120 mg/dL), by recording the frequency response of the harmonic reflection and transmission resonances. This indicates the sensor's capability of detecting small variations in the dielectric properties of the blood samples that are responsive to the electromagnetic fields. The proposed sensor is verified through practical measurements of the fabricated design. Experimental results obtained using a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) demonstrate a sensitivity performance of about 6.2 dB/(mg/ml) for the developed triple-pole sensor that significantly outperforms the conventional single-pole and other proposed sensors in the literature in terms of the resonance amplitude resolution.

Low-cost portable microwave sensor for non-invasive monitoring of blood glucose level: novel design utilizing a four-cell CSRR hexagonal configuration.

This article presents a novel design of portable planar microwave sensor for fast, accurate, and non-invasive monitoring of the blood glucose level as an effective technique for diabetes control and prevention. The proposed sensor design incorporates four cells of hexagonal-shaped complementary split ring resonators (CSRRs), arranged in a honey-cell configuration, and fabricated on a thin sheet of an FR4 dielectric substrate.The CSRR sensing elements are coupled via a planar microstrip-line to a radar board operating in the ISM band 2.4-2.5 GHz. The integrated sensor shows an impressive detection capability and a remarkable sensitivity of blood glucose levels (BGLs). The superior detection capability is attributed to the enhanced design of the CSRR sensing elements that expose the glucose samples to an intense interaction with the electromagnetic fields highly concentrated around the sensing region at the induced resonances. This feature enables the developed sensor to detect extremely delicate variations in the electromagnetic properties that characterize the varying-level glucose samples. The desired performance of the fabricated sensor is practically validated through in-vitro measurements using a convenient setup of Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) that records notable traces of frequency-shift responses when the sensor is loaded with samples of 70-120 mg/dL glucose concentrations. This is also demonstrated in the radar-driven prototype where the raw data collected at the radar receiving channel shows obvious patterns that reflect glucose-level variations. Furthermore, the differences in the sensor responses for tested glucose samples are quantified by applying the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) machine learning algorithm. The proposed sensor, beside its impressive detection capability of the diabetes-spectrum glucose levels, has several other favorable attributes including compact size, simple fabrication, affordable cost, non-ionizing nature, and minimum health risk or impact. Such attractive features promote the proposed sensor as a possible candidate for non-invasive glucose levels monitoring for diabetes as evidenced by the preliminary results from a proof-of-concept in-vivo experiment of tracking an individual's BGL by placing his fingertip onto the sensor. The presented system is a developmental platform towards radar-driven wearable continuous BGL monitors.