Accessory spleen mimicking pancreatic tumour: evaluation by 99mTc-labelled colloid SPECT/CT study. Report of two cases and a review of nuclear medicine methods utility

The accessory spleen is a common congenital anomaly, typically asymptomatic and harmless to the patient. However, in some clinical cases, this anomaly beco­mes significant as it can be mistaken for a tumour or lymph node and be missed during a therapeutic splenectomy. There are nuclear medicine modalities which can be applied in the identification and localisation of an accessory spleen. They include scintigraphy with radiolabelled colloids or heat damaged red blood cells, which are trapped in the splenic tissue. Modern techniques, including hybrid imaging, enable simultaneous structure and tracer distribution evaluations. Additionally, radiation-guided surgery can be used in cases where the accessory spleen, which is usually small (not exceeding 1 cm) and difficult to find among other tissues, has to be removed. In the study, we would like to present 2 cases of patients in which the malignancy had to be excluded for the reason that the multiple accessory spleens were very closely related to the pancreas. There was a lack of certainty in the multi-phase computed tomography (CT) evaluation; however, this situation was clearly resolved by using the 99mTc-stannous colloid single photon emission computed tomography/ CT study. We would also like to briefly analyse the clinical applications of nuclear medicine in case of an accessory spleen

Urinary bladder diverticulum as an unusual content of the inguinal canal

The inguinal urinary bladder hernia is a rare pathology observed mostly in males. A new case of asymptomatic reducible acquired inguinal hernia was revealed in a 54-year-old male during computed tomography (CT) undertaken for oncological follow-up. The right nephrectomy was previously performed due to clear cell carcinoma. The hernia was not visible on the CT 6 months before and on ultrasound performed after voiding. Slight herniation with a wide invagination of transversalis fascia but with empty bladder was seen on CT 4 months after the initial detection of hernia

On robust model selection within the Cox model

Model selection methods have shown to be useful in the process of econometric modelling. The paper studies robust Akaike--Schwarz type information criteria of model choice within the Cox model. The criteria are based on a smooth modification of the partial likelihood function. Apart from asymptotic results, a Monte Carlo study is presented, which shows the finite sample behaviour of the procedure under discrepancies from the Cox model. Analysis of a real unemployment data case is also included. Copyright Royal Economic Society 2006