Case Series: Discordance Between Visible Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer Defects and Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomographic Analysis in Patients with Glaucoma

Background: Spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) has become a common modality in glaucoma diagnosis. Ease of use, comfort, and a comparative normative database makes this technology very popular with patients and practitioners. However, despite the sophistication of this technology, it may miss pathologic abnormalities of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) or be misinterpreted by practitioners based upon comparisons to a normative database. Purpose: To illustrate discordance between clinical examination and SD-OCT analysis in patients with glaucoma. Case Reports: Examples of three patients with glaucoma who had photographically and ophthalmoscopically visible RNFL defects who had SD-OCT analyses that fell within a normative database and thus likely to be interpreted as normal, if used in isolation. Conclusions: Though SD-OCT technology has become common in glaucoma evaluation, over-reliance on this data may lead to false-negative assessment of patients who truly have glaucoma. Spectral domain optical coherence tomography provides valuable adjunctive information for glaucoma evaluation but must be correlated with other clinical assessments such as perimetry, ophthalmoscopy and photography

Aerosol Pollution from Small Combustors in a Village

Urban air pollution is widely recognized. Recently, there have been a few projects that examined air quality in rural areas (e.g., AUPHEP project in Austria, WOODUSE project in Denmark). Here we present the results within the International Cooperation Project RER/2/005 targeted at studying the effect of local combustion processes to air quality in the village of Brzezina in the countryside north-west of Wroclaw (south western Poland). We identified the potential emission sources and quantified their contributions. The ambient aerosol monitoring (PM10 and elemental concentrations) was performed during 4 measurement cycles, in summer 2009, 2010 and in winter 2010, 2011. Some receptor modeling techniques, factor analysis-multiple linear regression analysis (FA-MLRA) and potential source localization function (PSLF), have been used. Different types of fuel burning along with domestic refuse resulted in an increased concentration of PM10 particle mass, but also by an increased in various other compounds (As, Pb, Zn). Local combustion sources contributed up to 80% to PM10 mass in winter. The effect of other sources was small, from 6 to 20%, dependently on the season. Both PM10 and elemental concentrations in the rural settlement were comparable to concentrations at urban sites in summer and were much higher in winter, which can pose asignificant health risk to its inhabitants

Anaphylaxis related to avocado ingestion: a case and review

Anaphylaxis to avocado, independent of latex sensitization, has been rarely reported in the literature. This case report describes a 15 year old male who experienced anaphylaxis within half an hour after eating avocado-containing food. Avocado consumption is common in both North America and South America. It is important to consider avocado as a cause of anaphylaxis, even in patients not sensitized to latex

Observation of ozone concentration during the solar eclipse

Abstract We report the results of measurements of ozone concentrations during the solar eclipse of 11 Ž . August 1999. The experiment was performed in Warsaw Poland and its surroundings. The temporal evolution of ozone concentration was measured using the differential absorption lidar Ž . DIAL and it was compared with results obtained by several monitoring stations measuring with other methods. In almost all cases, a drop in the ozone concentration was observed during the eclipse. Experimental data was compared with calculations done using a simple model based on NO -O chemical kinetics. q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved