Partial Seizures as the First Manifestation of Primary Angiitis of the Central Nervous System

A young woman presented with initial epileptic seizures and multiple ‘mass-like’ lesions seen on computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. Given this presentation and her past medical history, a cerebral biopsy was performed to rule out malignancy, but showed a necrotizing cerebral vasculitis. We describe this case to reinforce the view that primary central nervous system vasculitis (PCNSV) should be considered in the differential diagnosis of a cerebral mass, even if uncommon

Dermatomyositis Associated with Sarcoidosis: Two Cases

Dermatomyositis (DM) and sarcoidosis are two idiopathic systemic disorders. Reports of patients with both conditions are extremely rare. Here we describe two patients who presented with DM and DM-associated antibodies, and later developed biopsy-proven sarcoidosis. There are increasing reports of the occurrence of sarcoidosis in the context of autoimmune diseases. These observations might imply similarities in the pathogenetic mechanisms

LocOMP: algorithme localement orthogonal pour l'approximation parcimonieuse rapide de signaux longs sur des dictionnaires locaux

National audienceCet article présente LocOMP, un algorithme d'approximation parcimonieuse rapide pour les dictionnaires locaux (en particulier, les dictionnaires invariants par translation comme les dictionnaires temps-fréquence). Expérimentalement, LocOMP fournit des approximations aussi bonnes qu'OMP tout en restant dans la même classe de complexité que MP. C'est à notre connaissance le premier algorithme plus évolué que MP utilisable sur des signaux longs. LocOMP s'est montré expérimentalement 500 fois plus rapide qu'OMP

An Atypical Case of Vasculitis: When ‘Occult’ 18FDG-PET Scan Findings Create a Classification Dilemma

We describe a 66-year old patient with a recurrent ulcer on her right ankle. Biopsy revealed medium-vessel vasculitis consistent with cutaneous polyarteritis nodosa. There were no signs or symptoms suggestive of systemic vasculitis, but a 18FDG-PET scan showed areas of increased uptake around the large arteries and the pelvic and shoulder girdles. These findings suggested polymyalgia rheumatica in the setting of large-vessel vasculitis. This case thus supports the statement from the Chapel-Hill consensus conference that classification of systemic vasculitis by vessel size is based on the vessels predominantly involved, but vessels of other sizes may also be affected

Hydroxychloroquine in a G6PD-Deficient Patient with COVID-19 Complicated by Haemolytic Anaemia: Culprit or Innocent Bystander?

Hydroxychloroquine has been used worldwide as a first-line treatment for patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Little is known about COVID-19 and its effects on patients with congenital red blood cell disorders. We report a case of haemolytic anaemia in a 32-year-old patient and a fortuitous highlighting of G6PD deficiency. We reviewed the literature to assess the risk of hydroxychloroquine use in this context

Incidence and prognosis of dysnatraemia in critically ill patients: Analysis of a large prevalence study

Background: The objective of this study is to assess the impact of dysnatraemia on mortality among intensive care unit (ICU) patients in a large, international cohort. Material and methods: Analysis of the Extended Prevalence of Infection in Intensive Care (EPIC II) study, a 1-day (8 May 2007) worldwide multicenter, prospective point prevalence study. Hyponatraemia was categorized as mild (130-134 mM/L), moderate (125-129 mM/L) or severe ( 155 mM/L). Patients with normal serum sodium (135-145 mM/L) constituted the reference group. The main outcome was hospital mortality. Analysis was conducted separately for patients admitted on the study day (25·8%) and those already present on the ICU (74·2%). Results: Serum sodium was measured in 13 276 of the 13 796 patients (96·2%). A total of 3815 patients (28·7%) had dysnatraemia: 12·9% with hyponatraemia and 15·8% with hypernatraemia. The prevalence of dysnatraemia was significantly greater in patients already present on the ICU prior to the study day than for those just admitted (13·1% vs. 12·3% for hyponatraemia and 17·1% vs. 12·1% for hypernatraemia, both P < 0·001). Hospital mortality rates were higher in patients with dysnatraemia than in those with normal sodium levels and were directly related to the severity of hypo- and hypernatraemia. This association between dysnatraemia and mortality was similar in infected and noninfected patients (P = 0·061). Conclusions: Dysnatraemia is more frequent during the ICU stay than on the day of admission. Dysnatraemia in the ICU - even mild - is an independent predictor of increased hospital mortality

Potentially Life-Threatening Phosphate Diabetes Induced by Ferric Carboxymaltose Injection: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

We report the case of a 45-year-old female patient who developed phosphate diabetes after administration of ferric carboxymaltose. Ten days after the second dose, she complained of intense fatigue and blood analysis showed a phosphate plasma level of 0.93 mg/dL with phosphate excretion rate of 23%. She received phosphate supplementation which resulted in phosphate clearance improvement which persisted for two months. We reviewed other cases described in the literature and would draw attention to this rare but potentially life-threatening side effect

GASTROCNEMIUS MYOSITIS ASSOCIATED WITH BEHÇET'S SYNDROME

Behçet's syndrome is a complex vasculitis involving vessels of all sizes. The typical clinical presentation consists of recurrent oral ulcers associated with genital ulcers, and/or intra-ocular inflammation and/or cutaneous lesions. It may also involve the joints, central nervous system, cardiovascular system and gastrointestinal tract. Muscle involvement associated with Behçet's syndrome has been rarely described. We here report two cases of muscular manifestations in the setting of Behçet's syndrome with specific gastrocnemius muscle involvement.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Fast orthogonal sparse approximation algorithms over local dictionaries

International audienceIn this work we present a new greedy algorithm for sparse approximation called LocOMP. LocOMP is meant to be run on local dictionaries made of atoms with much shorter supports than the signal length. This notably encompasses shift-invariant dictionaries and time-frequency dictionaries, be they monoscale or multiscale. In this case, very fast implementations of Matching Pursuit are already available. LocOMP is almost as fast as Matching Pursuit while approaching the signal almost as well as the much slower Orthogonal Matching Pursuit

A LOW COMPLEXITY ORTHOGONAL MATCHING PURSUIT FOR SPARSE SIGNAL APPROXIMATION WITH SHIFT-INVARIANT DICTIONARIES

We propose a variant of Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP), called LoCOMP, for scalable sparse signal approximation. The algorithm is designed for shift-invariant signal dictionaries with localized atoms, such as time-frequency dictionaries, and achieves approximation performance comparable to OMP at a computational cost similar to Matching Pursuit. Numerical experiments with a large audio signal show that, compared to OMP and Gradient Pursuit, the proposed algorithm runs in over 500 less time while leaving the approximation error almost unchanged