Acupuncture-D" - Bilateral Pneumothoraces Following Dry Needling.

Presentation A 24-year-old newly graduated junior doctor presented to the emergency department with acute onset chest pain, haemoptysis and exertional dyspnoea following a dry needling session. Diagnosis Chest x-ray showed bilateral pneumothoraces, worse on the right side. Treatment The bilateral pneumothoraces were treated conservatively with supplemental oxygen initially. On the second day of admission, repeat chest x-ray demonstrated a worsening right sided pneumothorax. While vitally stable, the patient however had become increasingly dyspnoeic, and a needle aspiration was performed on the right side with good effect. Conclusion The anatomical location targeted along with the patients low-normal BMI makes her high-risk when considering the skin-to-pleura distance. Although the incidence of pneumothorax is low, it is imperative that we improve awareness both for the treating physician and the diagnosing clinician. We must begin to fill the distinct lack in available literature surrounding the potential adverse effects of dry needling.

Alcohol consumption and risk of colorectal cancer in a cohort of Finnish men.

We investigated the association between self-reported alcohol ingestion and colorectal cancer in a cohort of male smokers in Finland. Among 27,109 men aged 50 to 69 years, 87 colon and 53 rectal cases were diagnosed during the five to eight years of follow-up. Among drinkers, colorectal cancer risk increased with the amount of alcohol consumed (P trend = 0.01) with risk increasing by 17 percent for each drink consumed. Both beer and spirits contributed to this increased risk. Further analyses revealed that the positive association with alcohol was primarily for colon cancer (P trend = 0.01). Interestingly, risk of colorectal cancer associated with drinking (cf self-reported abstinence) changed with follow-up time, suggesting an inverse association for alcohol early in follow-up, and a positive association after about three-and-a-half years of follow-up. Follow-up time did not modify the positive association with amount of alcohol among drinkers, however. Results also indicated that beta-carotene supplementation may attenuate the effect of alcohol on colorectal cancer risk among drinkers. In conclusion, this study supports a role for alcohol in colon carcinogenesis and suggests that similar studies should evaluate carefully the effects of lifetime drinking habits and recent abstinence.

In vitro lines of the BN rat promyelocytic leukemia that differ from the parent.

Cells from the spleens of Brown Norway rats made leukemic with the in vivo-passaged promyelocytic line BNML have been adapted to in vitro culture in RPMI-1640 medium supplemented with 4% rat serum and 6% fetal bovine serum. The presence of rat serum, which also was associated with suppression of fibroblasts, appeared to be required for initial growth. In contrast to the parent this new cell line (BNML-RS) was predominantly myeloblastic under standard conditions of culture with only 4-10% of cells showing granules or stainable peroxidase. However, when passaged through an animal, 60-70% contained both granules and peroxidase. Neither parent nor established line evolved to the polymorph stage when assessed for terminal maturation after exposure to dimethyl sulfoxide or retinoic acid. These cells now extend the limited number of myeloid lines available and potentially are a useful model in which to study the controlling events in early myeloblast maturation.