Two cases of chronic knee pain caused by unusual injuries to the popliteus tendon.

Injuries to the popliteus tendon are less frequent than injuries to the menisci or ligamentous structures of the knee. When they do occur, injuries to the popliteus tendon tend to be the result of trauma and associated with injuries to other components of the knee. The most commonly seen injuries include tears at the musculotendinous junction and avulsion tears at the lateral femoral condyle insertion site. This report presents two unusual injuries of the popliteus tendon in patients with chronic knee pain: an isolated split tear of the tendon and a subluxed tendon residing within the lateral joint space.

Transformation of a Nonfunctional Paraganglioma With I-123 MIBG Scintigraphy Correlation: A Case Report.

A 35-year-old woman presenting with abdominal pain was found to have mildly elevated catecholamine levels and a retroperitoneal mass. The patient underwent a negative I-123 MIBG scintigraphy scan and a nondiagnostic fine needle aspiration. Eleven years later the patient presented with a hypertensive emergency and markedly elevated catecholamine levels. A subsequent I-123 MIBG scintigraphy scan showed intense uptake corresponding to the previously seen retroperitoneal mass. The patient underwent surgical resection and pathology confirmed the presence of a paraganglioma. A paraganglioma is an extra-adrenal pheochromocytoma that contains chromaffin cells and is thus capable of producing catecholamines. I-123 metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) scintigraphy has become the imaging study of choice for paragangliomas and has a sensitivity of ∼77% to 100% in detecting functional paragangliomas. This case demonstrates scintigraphic correlation of the functional transformation of a nonfunctional paraganglioma in a time span of ∼10 years. Although there are previously published case reports of scintigraphic positive, nonfunctional paragangliomas and scintigraphic negative chromaffin cell tumors, there has been no prior documented case of scintigraphic transformation on MIBG.

Gorham-Stout disease presenting with dyspnea and bone pain in a 9-year-old girl.

Gorham-Stout (GS) disease is a rare bone disorder of unknown etiology that is characterized by local proliferation of small vascular or lymphatic channels, resulting in progressive osteolysis and bone resorption. The diagnosis of GS disease is one of exclusion, with radiography and histopathology playing key roles. We describe a 9-year-old girl who presented to us with dyspnea and bone pain. She was found to have a cystic mass of the upper extremity, multiple cystic bone lesions, multiple fractures of different ages, and pleural effusions. We review the radiologic images that helped establish the diagnosis of GS disease.

Radiographic findings of Proteus Syndrome.

The extremely rare Proteus Syndrome is a hamartomatous congenital syndrome with substantial variability between clinical patient presentations. The diagnostic criteria consist of a multitude of clinical findings including hemihypertrophy, macrodactyly, epidermal nevi, subcutaneous hamartomatous tumors, and bony abnormalities. These clinical findings correlate with striking radiographic findings.

Iterative, aqueous synthesis of beta3-oligopeptides without coupling reagents.

The chemoselective synthesis of amides by decarboxylative couplings of alpha-ketoacids and isoxazolidines makes possible an iterative approach to poly-beta3-peptides. Peptide assembly occurs under aqueous conditions and requires no coupling reagents. The requisite isoxazolidine monomers are prepared in enantiopure form by a convenient two-step protocol starting from the appropriate aldehydes.