Duodenal diverticulum (DD) is a common incidental finding, which rarely causes complications. Perforation is one of the most feared and the least common complications. Surgery is the mainstay for complicated duodenal diverticulum, but with the advancement of medical treatment and intensive care, nonoperative management has been reported. We present a rare case of perforated DD that failed medical management and subsequently underwent surgical intervention.A 77-year-old, healthy female presented with right-sided abdominal pain with low-grade fever and leukocytosis. Computed tomography (CT) of the abdomen showed retroperitoneal fluid collection around the second part of the duodenum, which was not amenable to percutaneous drainage. Contrast studies showed no evidence of perforation or leak of the stomach or duodenum. The diagnosis was made via an upper endoscopy that showed a large periampullary duodenal diverticulum with purulent drainage and normal-looking ampulla. After failed conservative management with broad-spectrum antibiotics and worsening symptoms, she underwent excision and primary repair of the diverticulum with a jejunal serosal patch and exploration of the common bile duct (CBD). She had an uncomplicated postoperative course and was discharged home on postoperative day four.Although rare, the duodenal diverticular perforation can be a life-threatening complication. Combined subjective, clinical, and radiological assessment of the patient is crucial in deciding whether to operate or not.

Purpose: Blood vessels called telangiectasia are visible in skin lesions with the aid of dermoscopy. Telangiectasia are a pivotal identifying feature of basal cell carcinoma.These vessels appear thready, serpiginous, and may also appear arborizing, that is, wide vessels branch into successively thinner vessels. Due to these intricacies, their detection is not an easy task, neither with manual annotation nor with computerized techniques. In this study, we automate the segmentation of telangiectasia in dermoscopic images with a deep learning U-Net approach. Methods:We apply a combination of image processing techniques and a deep learning-based U-Net approach to detect telangiectasia in digital basal cell carcinoma skin cancer images. We compare loss functions and optimize the performance by using a combination loss function to manage class imbalance of skin versus vessel pixels. Results:We establish a baseline method for pixel-based telangiectasia detection in skin cancer lesion images. An analysis and comparison for human observer variability in annotation is also presented. Conclusion:Our approach yields Jaccard score within the variation of human observers as it addresses a new aspect of the rapidly evolving field of deep learning: automatic identification of cancer-specific structures. Further application of DL techniques to detect dermoscopic structures and handle noisy labels is warranted.

Amelanotic melanoma is a rare melanoma subtype, and it is even more rare when it occurs at an acral site. We here present a case of a nodular amelanotic acral melanoma (NAAM) occurring on the heel of an 83‐year old female. It presented as an ulcerated pink nodular growth on the heel, which clinically mimicked other nodular non‐pigmented lesions, causing a delay in diagnosis until it was biopsied. This case is a demonstration of the critical importance to include NAAM in the differential diagnosis of nodular non‐pigmented skin lesions as to avoid delay in diagnosis and disease progression, in which early detection can provide the most modifiable prognostic factor.

Currently, there is a worldwide obesity pandemic with an incidence that has increased progressively over the last few decades. Obesity is considered a global health hazard and is associated with a significant economic impact on the healthcare system. It has been linked to several serious medical conditions, including heart disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes mellitus, and cancer. Obesity is also related to social and psychological problems such as anxiety and depression. Several factors predispose the population to obesity, including decreased physical activity and non-healthy dietary habits. Sugar is the most important key contributor to the pandemic of obesity, and implementing a sugar-free workplace policy will provide a promising strategy for fighting obesity.

Giant basal cell carcinoma (GBCC) is a rare skin cancer characterized by an aggressive biological behavior with extensive local invasion, frequent metastasis, and associated poor prognosis. Wide local excision with sentinel lymph node biopsy is often warranted for this condition, and reconstruction by local rotational flap is one of the best surgical techniques for repairing similar skin cancers with a relatively large skin defect. A 59-year-old man who was a former construction worker with a significant smoking history presented with a single giant suspicious chronic ulcerating skin lesion measuring 9 x 7 cm that proved to be a basal cell carcinoma (BCC) on his left shoulder. The patient was negative for enlarged or palpable lymph nodes and underwent a wide local excision and primary repair with a local flap. Despite negative margins, his follow-up visits at six, nine, and 10 months revealed numerous suspicious lesions that further required multiple local wide excisions that showed new basal cell carcinoma and recurrence to the left axilla. Given the invasiveness of his skin cancer, he was referred to oncology and later treated by chemoradiation. Patients with multiple risk factors are associated with a higher incidence of more invasive skin cancer due to possible cumulative effects. The therapeutic approach for GBCC should involve multidisciplinary teams, with wide local resection of the tumor with possible sentinel lymph node biopsy, local rotational flap for reconstruction of the wide defect, and adjuvant chemoradiotherapy if necessary.