A Rare Presentation of Chronic Appendicitis in the Right Upper Quadrant: A Case Report.

Chronic appendicitis is a rare cause of chronic abdominal pain that can be difficult to diagnose. We present a patient with chronic right upper quadrant pain that was finally diagnosed as chronic appendicitis. This 71-year-old male had no systemic diseases and presented to our outpatient clinic with right upper quadrant pain for one month. The pain tended to worsen in the early morning but could be relieved by bowel movements, sitting up, or walking. The findings of a physical examination, laboratory data, and abdominal ultrasound were not significant. Upper endoscopy revealed a shallow gastric ulcer at the antrum. However, the abdominal pain was not relieved by esomeprazole. A computed tomography (CT) scan revealed a dilated appendix with some appendicoliths in the retrocecal region. Due to chronic appendicitis, the patient underwent laparoscopic appendectomy, and the histopathological examination of the removed appendix confirmed the diagnosis. The abdominal pain completely resolved after the surgery. Chronic appendicitis should be kept in mind in patients with chronic abdominal pain without a definite diagnosis. This case illustrates that in addition to right lower quadrant pain, chronic appendicitis can also present with right upper quadrant pain or vague abdominal pain. A CT scan is invaluable in the diagnosis of abdominal pain when medical treatment fails to yield improvement.

Synchrotron microangiography studies of angiogenesis in mice with microemulsions and gold nanoparticles.

We present an effective solution for the problem of contrast enhancement in phase-contrast microangiography, with the specific objective of visualising small (<8 microm) vessels in tumor-related microangiogenesis. Different hydrophilic and hydrophobic contrast agents were explored in this context. We found that an emulsified version of the hydrophobic contrast agents Lipiodol provides the best contrast and minimal distortion of the circulation and vessel structure. Such emulsions are reasonably biocompatible and, with sizes of 0 +/- 0.8 microm, sufficient to diffuse to the smallest vessel and still provide reasonable contrast. We also explored the use of Au nanoparticle colloids that could be used not only to enhance contrast but also for interesting applications in nanomedicine. Both the Lipiodol microemulsions and Au nanoparticle colloids can be conjugated with medicines or cell specific labeling agents and their small size can allow the study of the diffusion of contrast agents through the vessel leakage. This enables direct imaging of drug delivery which is important for cancer treatment.

Simple dose rate measurements for a very high synchrotron X-ray flux.

Dose measurements based on methylene blue (MB) bleaching, widely used for ultraviolet light, can also be applied to X-rays including very high flux levels. This method has been tested by using both MB bleaching and Fricke dosimetry for a conventional monochromatic X-ray source and then for 'white-beam' synchrotron radiation. The results show that MB bleaching dosimetry can easily measure X-ray doses up to at least 10(5) Gy s(-1), as long as the MB concentration is sufficiently high. This condition can be verified from the deviations from linearity of the bleaching versus exposure time.