RESUMEN
Small bowel adenocarcinoma (SBA) is rare cancer that accounts for less than 2% of all gastrointestinal tract cancers. Usually, the clinical presentation is unspecific, and a patient might complain of nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, small bowel obstruction, and small bowel bleeding. Because of these unspecific symptoms, the patient might be diagnosed late, from six to ten months, which affects the prognosis. This study contains a case report of a 38-year female with SBA in the jejunum, with unspecific symptoms. She had a history of recurrent admissions due to acute pancreatitis, acute kidney injury, and hyponatremia caused by dehydration. The patient was diagnosed six months after the first symptoms of nausea and vomiting started. The patient underwent exploratory laparotomy for a jejunal stricture mass, and a lymph node was resected. The course after surgery was smooth, and the patient was discharged home on the fourth-day post-surgery. In conclusion, the symptoms of SBA are unspecific and cannot be diagnosed without complete medical histories and lab examinations, making diagnosing SBA challenging.
RESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: To describe the patterns and outcomes of traumatic spinal injuries (TSIs) in a tertiary care trauma centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. DESIGN: Retrospective medical record review. SETTING: Level 1 trauma centre for all patients presented from 1 February 2016 to 31 December 2018. PARTICIPANTS AND DATA: Records of patients presenting with any spinal trauma were reviewed, and the data obtained included age, gender, nationality (as Saudi and non-Saudi), date of presentation, site of fracture/injury, associated injuries, mechanism of injury, presence of neurological involvement and hospital mortality. MAIN OUTCOMES: Frequencies of different types of TSI across various subgroups. RESULTS: We identified 692 patients who presented with TSI throughout the study period. The mean age was 36.9 years. Males represented 83.2% (n=576) of the sample size, and the most common mechanism of injury was motor vehicle collision (MVC), accounting for 66.8% of cases (n=462), while fall-related injuries were seen in 31.6% of cases (n=219). A total of 454 (65.6%) of all patients were Saudi, and 332 (73.1%) of the TSIs in Saudis were due to MVC. Non-Saudi cases accounted for 238 (34.4%) of all patients, and 89 (37.4%) of the non-Saudi injuries were due to falls from height, and this association was statistically significant (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: TSI was not thoroughly examined in Saudi Arabia; therefore, this study is considered the first to be done in the Kingdom using a representative sample. The fact that non-Saudi patients had a higher proportion of falls as a mechanism of injury should be taken into consideration in terms of raising awareness and taking more safety precautions, as most construction workers tend to be expatriates.