70-year-old woman with chronic diarrhea.

We present the clinical case of a seventy-year-old female patient with hypertension in treatment with olmesartan since one year ago and no other past medical history of interest. She was hospitalized in the internal medicine department in order to study constitutional symptoms which consisted of confirmed weight loss of 13 kg, chronic diarrhea, loss of appetite, asthenia, and intermittent colic-like abdominal pain. After an initial screening for neoplastic disease, other possible options were considered.

[Mycobacteriosis during 1980-1990 in a Madrid hospital]. / Micobacteriosis durante el período 1980-1990 en un hospital de Madrid.

BACKGROUND: To assess the incidence and features of environmental mycobacteria that can produce disease over a ten years period (1980-1990) in an University Hospital from Madrid (Spain). METHODS: Medical records of all patients in whom and environmental mycobacteria that can produce disease had been isolated were reviewed and classified as definite, possible or not clinically significant isolates, according to clinical features and microbiologic findings. RESULTS: Mycobacterium species were isolated in 415 patients (491 clinical samples over a total of 3003, 16.3%). In 29 patients a environmental mycobacteria that can produce disease was identified. Medical records from 25 patients were retrieved, being this mycobacteria isolated classified as with definite clinical significance in 8 cases, with possible clinical significance in 4, and without clinical significance in 13 cases. Clinical features in the significant cases were: lung infection (3 cases), pleural and pericardial disease (1 case), peritonitis (1) and soft tissue infection (1) Two patients died. Surgical excision of the lesion was performed in the remaining patients, and clinical cure was achieved in five cases. CONCLUSIONS: The most prevalent mycobacterial infection in our environment is still due to M. tuberculosis infection, followed by M.avium-intracellulare. Surgical treatment is a valid approach in patients with localized infection by environmental mycobacteria that can produce diseases.

[Iron deficiency dyserythropoiesis in patients with chronic gastrointestinal and gynecologic hemorrhages. Study of 39 cases]. / Diseritropoyesis ferropénica en pacientes con hemorragias crónicas gastrointestinales y ginecológicas. Estudio de 39 casos.

A defect of haemoglobin synthesis is the classically recognized mechanism affecting the erythron functionalism in chronic iron deficiency. The poor erythroblastic bone-marrow response, plus a number of dyserythropoietic nuclear features, have led to think of an impairment of the cell cycle of erythroblasts in iron-lack anaemia. The aim of the present work was to study such hypothesis, not proven so far. Ten subjects with normal haemopoiesis and 39 patients with iron-lack anaemia of different aetiologies (namely, 19 with digestive tract bleeding, 16 with gynaecological bleeding, and 4 with haemorrhages on other locations) were included in a previously reported protocol. The scheme of such protocol consisted of: 1) bone-marrow erythroblast quantification; 2) analysis of their maturation gradient; 3) erythroblast mitotic index; 4) measure of the mitotic time in bone-marrow culture; 5) tritiated-thymidine incorporation to short-term bone-marrow culture and quantification of the erythroblastic labelling index. To these were added the degree of nuclear dyserythropoiesis according to Hill and Lewis, and the reticulocyte production index. The following mean values were found in the control group: erythroblasts, 25.5 (+/- 3.63) %; E1-E4, 47.66 (+/- 3.09) %; IDN, 0.67 (+/- 0.27); MI, 2.82 (+/- 0.66) %; MT, 1.05 (+/- 0.15 hr); LI, 34.88 (+/- 5.82) %. The mean values found in iron-lack anaemias were as follows: erythroblasts 39.42 (+/- 9.1) %; E1-E4, 42.25 (+/- 4.11) %; IDN, 7.77 (+/- 4.69); MT, 1.81 (+/- 0.95) hr; LI, 13.08 (+/- 6.51) %. The statistical analysis (Student's t) showed highly significant differences (p less than 0.001) in the increased IDN and decreased MI and LI in iron deficiency patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)