A bolt from the blue: Lightning strike to the headTo the Editor: The readership of Neurology. after reading Dr.Cherington's et al.'s excellent article on lightning strike.' may be interested in the origin of the term *a bolt from the blue."The phrase can be traced to medieval warfare. Battlefield strategy, a t that time, placed archers with longbows (which shoot arrows) in the front line, aiming directly at the opponents. Arrayed behind the longbow archers were the crossbow (which shoot bolts) troops. Having a longer range than the longbows. the archers would raise their crossbows and lob their bolts over the frontline and down onto the heads of the enemy. Thus, a "bolt" coming out of the (blue) sky.Patrick J . Sweeney, MD. FACP ('lecela ti d . OH

The physiological myocardial uptake showed several patterns. Focal uptake was often seen in patients with cardiac disease, but it did not always indicate an abnormal finding when the accumulation was only on the basal wall.

No abstract

No abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of transcatheter arterial embolization prior to surgical excision of musculoskeletal tumors. We reviewed the records of nine patients (3 females and 6 males) who received arterial embolization prior to excision of musculoskeletal tumors in our hospital from December 2009 to April 2010. We evaluated tumor region, size, histopathology, feeding artery, embolic material, and blood loss during surgery. We compared the actual amount of intraoperative bleeding with arterial embolization to estimated amounts of bleeding without embolization predicted by three orthopedic surgeons. Arterial embolization was performed on the same day or within 5 days before surgery. Operations were performed as planned in all patients without serious complications. The amount of intraoperative bleeding was 35-4200 mL and there was significantly less bleeding with arterial embolization compared with the estimated amounts (p<0.01). Our results show that arterial embolization prior to resection of hypervascular musculoskeletal tumors reduces the amount of bleeding during surgery and contributes to patient safety.