[A case of localized osseous cryptococcosis].
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to V Lemaire.
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A twenty seven year old man had polyarthritis following diarrhoea due to Salmonella typhimurium. The role of the salmonella infection in the pathogenesis of this joint problem would appear to be confirmed by the detection of the organism on stool culture and a positive reaction for specific antigens in the blood. The arthritis was cured in six weeks under the influence of non-steroid anti-inflammatory agents.
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Vitamin D-deficient osteomalacia with pronounced secondary hyperparathyroidism was observed in an acromegalic patient suffering from adult celiac disease. Two oral tests with tritiated vitamin D3 showed a nearly normal absorption coefficient, contrasting with a marked steatorrhea mainly due to functional and reversible pancreatic insufficiency. The urinary excretion of the radioactive label was strikingly increased and accounted for the completely flat curve of plasma radioactivity. This urinary loss of mainly water-soluble metabolite(s) of vitamin D3 represents a unique and presently unexplained feature.
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The plasma parathormone was measured by radioimmunological determination in 23 cases of cancer with bone metastases, 8 of mammary origin. In 11 cases the plasma parathormone (iPTH) was less than 4 ng/ml (lower normal limit), as might be expected in view of the hypercalcemia. In 12 cases the iPTH was higher than 4 ng/ml, in 8 of these higher than 8 ng/ml (upper normal limit). These results are suggestive of the role of a substance analogous to parathormone in the genesis of the hypercalcaemia and peritumoral bone resorption of bone metastases of solid tumors.
Reports of forty-six cases of aseptic polyarthritis following intestinal Salmonlla infections have been published. The organism involved is always a "minor" Salmonella either typhimurium or enteritidis. The interval separating the diarrhoea from the joint manifestations is usually one or two weeks. Post-salmonellosis rheumatism is most frequently polyarthritis involving the large joints accompanied by fever that is sometimes high. The sedimentation rate is increased and hyperleucytosis and discrete anaemia may also be present. Salmonella infection is established by the presence of the organism in the stools and a positive sero-diagnosis. In all cases the polyarthritis is cured by anti-inflammatory treatment in 1-6 months. HLA W27 antigen is present in the majority of the patients although spondylarthritis is not seen during the evolution. Although the number of cases of post-salmonellosis rheumatism is very small and the connection between the salmonellosis and the rheumatism has not been demonstrated, it is valuable, in cases of acute polyarthritis following enteritis, to carry out coproculture and serodiagnosis of salmonellosis.
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A case of osteomalacia, with no cause apart from the ingestion of anti-convulsants, is reported. As was shown by a study with tritium labelled vitamin D, the metabolism of the latter was accelerated in this case in comparison with deficiency type osteomalacia. This lends support to the hypothesis that anti-convulsant medications, acting via a hepatic enzyme induction process, cause increased transformation of vitamin D into inactive metabolites, thus explaining a certain deficiency in vitamin D in treated epileptics, a deficiency state which requires treatment.
The authors treated 17 patients with hypercalcaemia (which in 16 cases resulted from a malignant disease) by means of 1 to 3 daily perfusions of 25 g of mithramycin per kg body weight. In all patients the treatment resulted in reduction in the level of calcaemia. In 12 patients the level of calcaemia was reduced to less than 105 mg/litre; in 16 patients to less than 110 mg/litre. In no patient was the calcaemia reduced to less than 70 mg/litre. The only notable inconvenience of the treatment was vomiting during the perfusion. Mithramycin seems to be the treatment of choice for hypercalcaemia of cancerous origin.
The activity of a therapeutic drug against Paget's disease is judged by a reduction in the level of hydroxyprolinuria and of alkaline phosphatasaemia, these being the metabolic signs of the bone changes, and by a decrease in bone pain which may accompany the bone changes in Paget's disease. The effect of aspirin is only moderate and is produced only with large doses that are often not well tolerated. The cortisone drugs are also active only at high doses that should be avoided. The action of sodium fluoride is uncertain. Mithramycin is always effective; it leads to a decrease in the levels of hydroxyprolinuria and of alkaline phosphatosaemia and to disappearance of the pain. At the dose levels used by the authors, mithramycin induces only certain metabolic anomalies (rise in transaminases, decrease in the prothrombin level...) which return to normal at the end of treatment. However, the long-term tolerance of mithramycin is unknown and the authors think that its use in cases of Paget's disease should be severely restricted. Sodium etidronate, a diphosphonate that inhibits both bone resorption and osteoformation also decreases regularly the levels of hydroxyprolinuria and of alkaline phosphatasemia and often decreases the pain. It is usually well tolerated. However at the dose rate of 20 mg/kg/day it may lead to the development of osteomalacia.
The authors report the results they obtained by bone scintigraphy using technetium pyrophosphate. In a study of 142 patients with cancer, the authors show, as others have done, that bone scintigraphy makes it possible to find bone metastases that are radiologically undetectable and they emphasize the importance of this discovery. In 7 patients with spondylodiscitis, of whom 1 was without radiological signs at the time the scintigraphy was carried out, the authors always observed localized vertebral hyperfixation and they noted that this examination can be valuable for distinguishing spondylodiscitis from pseudo-Pott's discarthroses and from the lesions of vertebral epiphysitis, which in their experience do not result in isotopic hyperfixation. In 7 patients with epiphyseal osteonecrosis, the authors observed isotopic hyperfixation before the appearance of radiological signs. In 12 patients with osteoporosis, the authors observed hyperfixation in bone in certain compressed vertebrae, whereas other vertebrae that had probably been compressed some considerable time earlier did not fix the isotope excessively. They never observed hyperfixation in vertebrae that were not compressed. Among 5 patients with ankylosing spondylitis with radiological signs of sacro-iliac arthritis, the authors observed sacro-iliac hyperfixation in only 3 cases. Two other patients who had signs indicating ankylosing spondylarthritis, but were without radiological signs of sacro-iliac arthritis did not show sacro-iliac hyperfixation of the isotope. Among 7 patients with Paget's disease, the authors observed hyperfixation in all the bones with radiological signs of disease; in addition, in 3 patients, there was also hyperfixation in certain bones that were radiologically clear.
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