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Biomedical subjects

F Galateau

Publications and source records attributed to F Galateau.

66 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

[Cardiac sarcoidosis responsible for localized left ventricular ectasia and refractory ventricular tachycardia. Anatomoclinical study].

The authors report the case of a 63 year old woman admitted to hospital for recurrent refractory ventricular tachycardia. Echocardiography and cardiac scintigraphy showed global left ventricular function. Ventriculography confirmed the left ventricular dysfunction and also showed a localised aneurysm of the anterior left ventricular wall. Surgical resection of the aneurysm and an encircling endocardial ventriculotomy were performed but the patient died of a low output syndrome. Pathological examination of the excised tissue showed granulomatous lesions associated with fibrosis interrupting the striated myocardial bundles. The granulomata consisted in a large number of epithelioid histiocytes and very large giant cells with many nuclei. The diagnosis made retrospectively was that of cardiac sarcoidosis causing a ventricular aneurysm and global left ventricular dysfunction. The diagnosis of cardiac sarcoidosis is difficult in the absence of systemic extracardiac involvement because the clinical manifestations and complementary investigations are non specific. The diagnosis may be made by endomyocardial biopsy in 25 per cent of cases, thereby leading to specific treatment with steroids which is sometimes effective.

Cardiomyopathies↗

[Right-left shunt caused by sarcoma of the right atrium].

A 70 year old woman was admitted for right ventricular failure and cyanosis of recent onset. Echocardiography showed a very large, homogenous, immobile, smooth-contoured mass filling the right atrium. Right atrial pressures were raised but the other intracardiac pressures were normal at catheterisation. Right heart angiography confirmed the voluminous right atrial mass and dilatation of the hepatic veins and showed early opacification of the left heart chambers. A right-to-left shunt was confirmed by oximetry which showed significant desaturation of the blood in the left atrium and ventricle (saturation 78% in the left ventricle). The tumour was also documented by a thoracic CT scan. At surgery, a very large, malignant right atrial tumour was resected which histological examination showed to be an angiosarcoma. The interatrial septum seemed to be intact: there was no true atrial septal defect but a persistent foramen ovale was found. After resection of the tumour the right atrium was reconstructed. The initial postoperative period was uncomplicated but the patient died nine months later of metastatic disease particularly affecting the liver and brain. The clinical presentation of malignant cardiac tumour is very variable but a right-to-left interatrial shunt through a patent foramen ovale has only been reported previously in 2 cases of primary malignant tumours (a rhabdomyosarcoma and an angiosarcoma) and in 1 case of a secondary cardiac metastasis.

Aged↗

[Hepato-splenic candidiasis in patients treated for leukemia].

In patients with acute leukaemia, Candida infection may affect exclusively the liver and the spleen. Two such cases were revealed by persistent fever despite correction of bone marrow aplasia, abdominal pain, anicteric cholestasis and hypodense areas at computerized tomography suggesting hepatosplenic abscesses. Surgical liver biopsy confirmed the fungal infection and showed images of granuloma, mycelial filaments and yeasts; cultures were usually negative. The severity of these infections requires an early treatment, but amphotericin B is not very effective. Our two patients were cured after treatment with fluoconazole completed, in one of them by splenectomy.

Adult↗

[Neoplastic pulmonary embolism. Apropos of a case diagnosed by transbronchial pulmonary biopsy].

The authors report a case of micro-pulmonary emboli of malignant cells observed in a 58 year old lady who had been submitted to a mastectomy for cancer 18 months before, followed by chemotherapy for six months. The patient entered into the terminal phase of her disease with dyspnoea which became rapidly incapacitating leading to her death ten weeks later, in spite of heparin therapy and chemotherapy. The diagnosis was furnished by a transbronchial biopsy. However, the discovery of a mobile mass in the right ventricle raised the question as to the source of the micro-emboli.

Adenocarcinoma↗

[Sarcoidosis associated with significant blood hypereosinophilia. Apropos of a case].

We report the case of a 20-year old girl in whom sarcoidosis (articular, mediastinal, cardiac, lachrymal) and major blood eosinophilia (8,000 eosinophils/mm3) were discovered simultaneously. Clinically, biologically and radiologically, the course of the disease was rapidly favourable without any treatment. After a 13-month follow-up, the patients is now in good health. Since no other cause of blood eosinophilia was found (parasitological and immunological investigations were negative and there were no signs suggesting a myeloproliferative syndrome or a connective tissue disease), we believe that the blood abnormality must have been associated with sarcoidosis.

Adult↗

[Chronic lymphocytic leukemia, erythroblastopenia, thymolipoma].

The association of B cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia and pure red cell aplasia in a 42 year-old patient led to the discovery of a thymic enlargement. After six weeks treatment including steroids, cyclophosphamide and three courses of plasma exchange without improvement, surgical thymectomy was followed by a reticulocytosis and remission of the red cell aplasia. The tumor was a thymolipoma. Characteristics of this are thymic tumor, his connections with pure red cell aplasia and in vitro differentiation of erythroid progenitors are discussed.

Adult↗

Severe lupus with infectious thyroiditis and lethal cardiomyopathy.

Clinical cardiomyopathy is an uncommon complication of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and intracavitary thrombosis is rare. We describe a patient with active SLE who developed rapidly progressive cardiomyopathy, the fatal course of which was complicated by an intracavitary thrombus. Repeat cardiac echography studies and the endomyocardial biopsy proved to be helpful in diagnosing the lupus myocarditis and aided the regulation of therapy. Furthermore, the patient presented an acute suppurative thyroiditis never before described, to our knowledge, in SLE.

Adult↗

[Etiology and diagnostic of viral bronchopneumonias].

Community viral bronchopneumonias are frequent, mainly in children, and can be associated to all respiratory viruses: influenza- and parainfluenzavirus, respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, rhinovirus. The diagnostic method which proves viral infection of the respiratory tissues is selected as the direct detection by an immunofluorescence assay of viral infected cells in respiratory samples. In them, viral isolation or nucleic acid detection by PCR provide an amplification of the viruses. By using PCR-hybridation techniques viral detection is overall increased of 1.5 times for respiratory syncytial virus, 1.9 for parainfluenzavirus 3, 4 for rhinovirus and 10 times for adenovirus. This increased sensitivity raises questions about the meaning of the detection of viral sequences in nasal aspirates, with or without clinical signs. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a major agent of pneumonia in immunocompromised patients. All virological markers of CMV infection have to be sought (antigenemia, viremia...), but specific inclusions in pulmonary cells are the single diagnosis criteria. As pulmonary biopsies are rarely available and CMV inclusions rarely found in BAL, it has been reported useful to look for high viral loads or late m-RMA transcripts in these samples. Adenovirus pneumonia are unfrequent in these patients and mostly associated to rare or atypical strains. Such PCR-hybridization systems deserves also to be used in these cases.

Biomarkers↗

[Leiomyosarcoma of the heart and great vessels].

Leiomyosarcomas (LMS) of the heart are exceptional primary malignant tumours with a catastrophic prognosis and a mean survival measured in months. Extensive radical surgical resection clearly remains the most appropriate treatment. We report three cases observed over a 3-year period, consisting of an LMS of the inferior vena cava, an LMS of the pulmonary artery trunk and an LMS of the left atrium. The first case was treated by radical resection and reconstruction by autologous vein graft of the cavorenal junction, the second case was treated by extensive resection and prosthetic reconstruction of the pulmonary artery bifurcation and the third case was treated by a first radical resection of the left atrium, requiring total cardiectomy and orthotopic heart transplantation for local recurrence at the sixth month. The survical was significantly improved compared to other treatment options (chemotherapy, radiotherapy). The first patient is still alive without recurrence at two years; the second died 12.5 months after the surgical procedure and the medium-term follow-up of the transplanted patient revealed cerebral and hepatic metastases nine months after transplantation. The authors review the literature concerning these extremely rare malignant tumours. Recent progress of diagnostic investigations, such as spiral CT with reconstruction, MRI, positron emission tomography (PET), are now able to establish the diagnosis more rapidly and therefore allow more radical surgical resection. This resection, possibly combined with venous reconstruction, must be associated with adjuvant therapies. Heart transplantation should be considered among the treatment options for leiomyosarcomas of the heart, in order to improve the poor prognosis of these lesions affections a young population.

Brain Neoplasms↗