Pericardial effusion requiring pericardiocentesis in a girl with anorexia nervosa

Objective: Silent pericardial effusion is frequently observed in patients with anorexia nervosa. The nature of the pericardial fluid could never be established, as pericardiocentesis was ethically unfeasible. Method: We describe the case of a girl with anorexia nervosa in whom an initial, clinically irrelevant pericardial effusion increased rapidly, making pericardiocentesis necessary to prevent cardiac tamponade. Results: It was thus possible to exclude the inflammatory or infectious nature of the pericardial fluid, although the pathogenesis of this cardiac alteration remains obscure. Conclusion: Echocardiographic examination appears to be strongly advisable in patients with anorexia nervosa

High-radiance light sources with LED-pumped luminescent concentrators applied to pump Nd:YAG passively Q-switched laser

International audienceBy power scaling of LEDs pump concentrators we demonstrated a visible light source (centered at 550 nm) producing 294 W with a radiance of 668 W/cm 2 /sr in the air. Using more than 1100 LEDs, this setup represents one order of magnitude improvement in terms of output power and brightest of LED pump concentrator ever reported. We pushed further the concept of low cost high brightness light source using this concentrator to pump a very simple Nd:YAG laser in free running mode and in passively Q-switched regime using a Cr:YAG saturable absorber. Output energies up to 263 µJ with a pulse duration of 33 ns have been obtained at 1064 nm, leading to a peak power of 8 kW in a TEM00 mode