[A man from Surinam with haemorrhagic diarrhoea after long-standing schistosomiasis]. / Een Surinaamse man met bloederige diarree na jarenlange onbekende schistosomiasis.

A 35-year-old man presented with a brief history of haemorrhagic diarrhoea. He had moved to The Netherlands 24 years before and had been in Surinam 12 years ago for the last time. Physical examination and routine laboratory tests revealed no abnormalities. Colonoscopy showed a striking congestion of the small blood vessels; histological examination of a sigmoid biopsy revealed Schistosoma eggs and microbiological investigation of the feces revealed ova of Schistosoma mansoni. The schistosomiasis was thus diagnosed more than 10 years after the last possible exposure to schistosomal cercariae. The patient was treated with a single dose of praziquantel.

Benign thymic cyst following mantle radiotherapy for Hodgkin's disease.

The case history of a patient who was treated for Stage IA Hodgkin's disease involving the left supraclavicular region is presented. Shortly after mantle field radiation therapy she developed a mass in the anterior mediastinum. Histological examination of the lesion revealed it to be a benign cyst of the thymus. We consider it important that the possibility of the existence of such a benign growth be considered when a mediastinal mass appears in a patient treated for Hodgkin's disease, before more intensive tumour therapy is given.