Stress cardiomyopathy following thyroidectomy in a postmenopausal patient: A case report.

INTRODUCTION AND IMPORTANCE: First described in 1990 in Japan, Stress cardiomyopathy (SC) is characterized by transient systolic and diastolic left ventricular (LV) dysfunction with a variety of wall-motion abnormalities. It predominantly affects postmenopausal women and is often preceded by an emotional or physical trigger. SC is an increasingly recognized form of transient LV dysfunction that is often completely reversible. CASE PRESENTATION: We report a case of SC induced by thyroidectomy in a postmenopausal woman with a good outcome for the patient. CLINICAL DISCUSSION: The pathogenesis of SC remains obscure, several possible hypotheses include catecholamine induced myocardial spasm or catecholamine related myocardial stunning, metabolic disorders and coronary microvascular damage. It is described as a disease with a 6-fold female-male predominance, affecting elderly postmenopausal women leading researchers to an estrogen-based theory for the pathogenesis. Thera are also increasing evidences for link between SC and thyroid pathology. There is no consensus on the diagnostic criteria for SC. CONCLUSION: SC should be kept in mind especially in women with postmenopausal syndrome in perioperative period.

Presbyopia correction with a new Extended Depth of Focus Intraocular Lens.

Extended depth of focus intraocular lenses (EDoF IOLs) offer an expanded number of modalities for simultaneous cataract and presbyopia treatment. The objective of the current study was to assess clinical outcomes with a new mono-EDoF intraocular lens and to analyze the effect of different parameters on postoperative results. The inclusion criteria were defined as uneventful cataract surgery, no history of concomitant ocular disease, implantation of ZOE Primus-HD lens. Parameters from IOL Master 500 were analyzed. The main outcome measures were postoperative uncorrected distance (UDVA) and intermediate (UIVA) visual acuity. The study included 39 eyes of 37 patients (15 males and 22 females) with a mean age of 73.59±7.71. Postoperatively, the UDVA improved to 0.84±0.16 (p<0.001) and UIVA was 0.86±0.14. There was no correlation between K1, K2 and IOL power with both postoperative UDVA and IDVA. Moreover, there was no statistically significant difference between UDVA and UIVA between patients with mean K value over or under 44.0D (p=0.204 and p=0.817, respectively). The results of a multinomial logistic regression analysis for the predictive value of the factors K1, K2 and IOL power demonstrated no statistical significance, except for UIVA with a significant influence of IOL power (p=0.024) in patients with less than 0.9 Snellen visual acuity. The implantation of the new mono-EDoF ZOE Primus-HD lens led to improvement in both UDVA and UIVA. Patients with keratometry values less than 44.0D could still benefit from the mono-EDoF lenses. Further studies including wavefront aberrometry are needed to study the interaction between corneal aberrations and EDoF IOLs. Abbreviations: IOL = Intraocular lens, UDVA = Uncorrected distance visual acuity, UIVA = Uncorrected intermediate visual acuity, D = Diopters, EDoF = Enhanced Depth of Focus, MF IOL = Multifocal intraocular lens, AUC = area under the curve.

Lateral retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy: advantages and drawbacks.

Lateral retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy (LRA) is performed mostly by urologists. It is gaining popularity among general surgeons because of the direct access to the adrenal gland. However, the management of large tumors remains controversial. We report our experience and discuss the advantages and the drawbacks of this approach. Between December 2011 and April 2015, 89 consecutive patients underwent LRA for adrenal tumors. Conversion to open surgery, operative time, blood loss, hospital stay, intra-operative complications, early and late postoperative complications, and mortality were analyzed. The entire group was divided into patients with large tumors (> 5 cm) and patients with small tumors (≤ 5 cm), which were further compared. The conversion rate was 1.1%. The mean operative time was 107.4 ± 27.95 min, the mean blood loss 33.15 ± 25.45 ml. The mean hospital stay was 4.7 ± 2.05 days. Most of the complications were minor. There was zero mortality. Concerning the size of the tumor, we found statistically significant difference in operative time (p = 0.001), hospital stay (p = 0.020), incidence of early postoperative complications (p = 0.049), and conversion rate to open surgery (p = 0.037). LRA is a feasible, effective and safe procedure that offers additional advantages over the standard transabdominal approach because of its direct access to the adrenal gland. However, malignancy, large tumor size, bilateral pathology, and concomitant intra-abdominal pathology may represent a potential setback for this approach.

Fluorescent magnetoliposomes as a platform technology for functional and molecular MR and optical imaging.

Here, we present a detailed characterisation of rhodamine B-containing magnetoliposomes (FLU-ML), emphasising the dependence of their fluorescence properties on the presence of iron oxide cores, and the molar fraction of the fluorophore. The magnetoliposome types used exist as colloidally stable, negatively charged clusters with an average hydrodynamic diameter of 95 nm. The molar rhodamine B fractions were 0.67 % and 1.97 %. Rhodamine B normalised fluorescence, quantum yields and fluorescence lifetimes were substantially reduced by inner filter effects as the magnetoliposome concentration is increased, by increasing molar rhodamine B fraction, and by quenching originating from the iron oxide cores. MR relaxometry at 3 T revealed extremely high r2 relaxivities (440 to 554 s-1mM-1) and moderately high r1 values (2.06 to 3.59 s-1mM-1). Upon incubating human prostate carcinoma (PC-3) cells with FLU-ML, a dose-dependent particle internalisation was found by MR relaxometry. In addition, the internalised FLU-ML were clearly visible by fluorescence microscopy. At the FLU-ML concentrations used (up to 3 × 10³ M Fe) cell viability was not substantially impaired. These results provide valuable insights on the fluorescence properties of bimodal magnetoliposomes and open promising perspectives for the use of these materials as a platform technology for advanced functional and molecular MR and optical imaging applications.