No abstract

We report 5 cases of complete, or nearly complete, agenesis of the lumbar and sacral spine. In 1 case pregnancy was terminated at 23 weeks of gestation, and the others were livebirths. The surviving 4 patients were all infants of diabetic mothers. Imperforate anus was present in 2 of 4 liveborn patients and was suspected in the abortus. All liveborn cases were paraplegic, and all exhibited the ‘Buddha’ deformity of the lower extremities. One patient had congenital obstructive hydrocephalus, probably representing a variant of holoprosencephaly, requiring a ventriculoperitoneal shunt. No other nervous system anomaly was identified in any patient, and the other patients are showing normal cognitive development. We propose that these patients have defects which occurred during germ cell formation (i.e., during gastrulation), with interruption of the primitive streak resulting in combined failure of primary and secondary neu-rulation.

We searched the medical records of 1770 patients for those with proved mechanical on adynamic bowel obstruction. The search included all patients hospitalized at our institution

No abstract

We investigated sonographic changes to the breast after imaging guided core breast biopsy. We studied 31 breast lesions in 29 patients before, immediately after, and 2 to 9 days after core biopsy looking for hematomas. We found sonographic changes to the breast consistent with fluid collections after core biopsy in seven of 31 breast lesions (23%). Of the biopsy sites with sonographic changes, evidence suggested that six of 31 (19%) likely had hematomas. Sonographic changes after core breast biopsy are common and the formation rate of suspected hematomas is greater than previously believed although generally not clinically significant.