Epilepsie révélant une chorée-acanthocytose: à propos d’un cas

La chorée-acanthocytose (ChAc) est une affection autosomique récessive très rare causée par des mutations dans le gène VSP13A sur le chromosome 9q21. Elle est caractérisée par des signes neurologiques, des manifestations psychiatriques et une atteinte multisystémique comportant une myopathie, une neuropathie axonale et la présence de globules rouges spiculées ou acanthocytes. Rarement, l’épilepsie peut être le symptôme initial chez ces patients, ce qui peut considérablement retarder le diagnostic. Nous décrivons le cas d’un patient atteint de cette pathologie qui a présenté des crises épileptiques plusieurs années avant l’apparition des manifestations typiques.The Pan African Medical Journal 2016;2

Acute respiratory failure secondary to a cervical goitre in a pregnant woman: a case report

Abstract Background Pregnancy constitutes a significant factor in thyroid hypertrophy and can rarely progress to respiratory distress. We describe case of pregnant woman with acute respiratory distress following a tracheal compression due to goiter, quickly resulting in respiratory arrest, requiring emergency orotracheal intubation and thyroidectomy. Case presentation A pregnant woman with a growing goiter was referred to the hospital with a respiratory difficulty. During the examination, we found a large homogeneous goiter. The patient showed signs of respiratory exhaustion with bradypnea and pulmonary auscultation revealing decreased ventilation of the two pulmonary fields. The evolution quick led to respiratory arrest. The patient was rapidly intubated, which saved her. A thoracic computed tomography was performed and revealed a large goiter, compressing the trachea in its thoracic area and oppressing the vascular structures. Obstetrical ultrasound was normal. Thyroidectomy was decided after the patient’s preparation. After 24 h, the patient was successfully extubated without incident and the postoperative period was uneventful. Conclusion Airway obstruction during pregnancy secondary to goiter is rare but can be fatal. Early diagnosis might have avoided the evolution towards the respiratory failure. Prevention requires early surgery preferably before pregnancy or in our case a surgery in the second trimester

Clonal diversity and detection of carbapenem resistance encoding genes among multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolates recovered from patients and environment in two intensive care units in a Moroccan hospital

Background Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii has recently been defined by the World Health Organization as a critical pathogen. The aim of this study was to compare clonal diversity and carbapenemase-encoding genes of A. baumannii isolates collected from colonized or infected patients and hospital environment in two intensive care units (ICUs) in Morocco. Methods The patient and environmental sampling was carried out in the medical and surgical ICUs of Mohammed V Military teaching hospital from March to August 2015. All A. baumannii isolates recovered from clinical and environmental samples, were identified using routine microbiological techniques and Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed using disc diffusion method. The carbapenemase-encoding genes were screened for by PCR. Clonal relatedness was analyzed by digestion of the DNA with low frequency restriction enzymes and pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and the multi locus sequence typing (MLST) was performed on two selected isolates from two major pulsotypes. Results A total of 83 multidrug-resistant A. baumannii isolates were collected: 47 clinical isolates and 36 environmental isolates. All isolates were positive for the bla OXA51-like and bla OXA23-like genes. The coexistence of bla NDM-1 /bla OXA-23-like and bla OXA 24-like /bla OXA-23-like were detected in 27 (32.5%) and 2 (2.4%) of A. baumannii isolates, respectively. The environmental samples and the fecally-colonized patients were significantly identified (p < 0.05) as the most common sites of isolation of NDM-1-harboring isolates. PFGE grouped all isolates into 9 distinct clusters with two major groups (0007 and 0008) containing up to 59% of the isolates. The pulsotype 0008 corresponds to sequence type (ST) 195 while pulsotype 0007 corresponds to ST 1089.The genetic similarity between the clinical and environmental isolates was observed in 80/83 = 96.4% of all isolates, belonging to 7 pulsotypes. Conclusion This study shows that the clonal spread of environmental A. baumannii isolates is related to that of clinical isolates recovered from colonized or infected patients, being both associated with a high prevalence of the bla OXA23-like and bla NDM-1genes. These findings emphasize the need for prioritizing the bio-cleaning of the hospital environment to control and prevent the dissemination of A. baumannii clonal lineages