Periocular Swelling, Fever, and Organomegaly in a 4-Year-Old Child.

A child aged 4 years presented with a 3-day history of worsening redness, pain, and swelling over the left lower eyelid and nose. Visual acuity was normal, and systemic examination revealed cervical lymphadenopathy and hepatosplenomegaly. The patient showed no improvement after 3 days of intravenous ceftriaxone, and a computed tomography scan showed a collection in the lacrimal sac. What would you do next?

Strabismus as a Presenting Sign in Retinoblastoma.

PURPOSE: To report the presenting signs of retinoblastoma in a large cohort of patients who underwent orthoptic assessment at presentation. METHODS: A retrospective medical chart review was conducted on 131 patients with retinoblastoma who presented consecutively to a single institution during a 6-year period. The main outcome measure was the presenting sign(s) of the disease. RESULTS: Of 131 patients with retinoblastoma, 88 presented with unilateral disease and 43 presented with bilateral disease (mean ages: 22.7 and 14.8 months, respectively). Leukocoria was the presenting sign in 56% of patients, leukocoria and strabismus in 18%, strabismus in 13%, inflammation in 8%, and "other" signs in 5%. The fovea was affected by the retinoblastoma tumor or its sequelae in 75% of patients. Patients who presented with strabismus were significantly more likely to have foveal involvement than patients who presented with leukocoria alone (P = .001). Thirty-one percent of patients had strabismus as a component of their presentation; 63% had exotropia, 23% had esotropia, and 14% had variable strabismus. The percentage of patients with strabismus increased to 66% when small angle and variable strabismus were also considered. Patients with inflammation had worse ocular survival (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: This study assessed the combination of leukocoria and strabismus as presenting features of retinoblastoma. Foveal involvement is common in patients who have strabismus and may influence decision-making regarding globe salvage. The authors confirmed that exotropia is more common than esotropia in retinoblastoma in the largest cohort to have undergone an orthoptic assessment. [J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus. 2021;58(5):324-330.].

Cows-feet soup: a rare cause of recurrent trichobezoar.

A 45-year-old Afro-Caribbean woman attended the emergency department with worsening dysphagia, abdominal distension, abdominal pain, shortness of breath and generalised weakness. She enjoyed preparing and eating cows-feet stew and preferred to cook the meat with the hair and skin intact. On admission she had a severe microcytic anaemia and was malnourished. Abdominal x-ray and CT revealed a large gastric bezoar. At gastrotomy a foul-smelling 2.42 kg mass of hair, leathery skin and altered food were evacuated from the lesser curvature of the stomach. She had undergone the same procedure 8 years earlier to remove a similar trichobezoar. Following psychiatric review it was deemed that the patient had no underlying psychiatric condition and had full insight into why her trichobezoar had re-occurred. She made a good postoperative recovery and stopped eating cows-feet stew.