pressure fell to 90/60 mmHg. The nitroprusside infusion was stopped and he was transferred to the operating theatre. Full cardiopulmonary bypass was established through the femoral vessels, he was cooled to 18 8C to protect the brain and spinal cord, and the proximal descending aorta was replaced with a woven Dacron prosthesis during a short period of circulatory arrest. He made a good recovery. COMMENT Massive haemoptysis, de®ned as expectoration of between 200 mL and 1000 mL of blood in 24 hours, is rare and accounts for less than 1.5% of all cases of haemoptysis 1. It may be caused by primary diseases of the lung parenchyma or of the aorta. Historically, tuberculosis and bronchiectasis were the most common primary lung diseases that caused massive haemoptysis but, as their incidence declined, bronchitis and carcinoma of the lung became more important 1. Disruption of the aorta often results in sudden death from exsanguination into the hemithorax. However, in some cases local in¯ammation causes the lung to adhere to the aorta with formation of an aortopulmonary ®stula. The onset of haemoptysis then offers a small window of opportunity to save the patient. Before 1960, mycotic aneurysms caused by tuberculosis, syphilis, and other infections were the leading causes of aortopulmonary ®stula due to aortic disease. Today the predominant causes are atherosclerosis and thoracic aortic surgery 2. Haemoptysis in any patient with a history of thoracic surgery must be treated with the utmost suspicion. Concurrent haematemesis must not distract the clinician from the diagnosis. Blood may appear in the back of the throat without the patient being certain of its origin. While inhaled irritants elicit a cough re¯ex, warm blood may elicit either no response or a gag re¯ex. Consequently, the blood may seem to have been vomited. Matters may be further confused because some blood is swallowed and vomited later. A careful history, examination and plain radiographs should point to the diagnosis. A mediastinal mass on plain chest radiographs demands urgent investigation with crosssectional imaging or angiography and early involvement of cardiothoracic surgeons.

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This work reports a simple method to improve the properties of electrospun nanofibers. The procedure involves developing nanofibers using electrospinning followed by liquid infiltration to reinforce the fibers. Coating of polyurethane nanofibers (PUN) with resorcinol-formaldehyde (RF) significantly improves the properties of PUN. Furthermore, the morphology of fiber interface and the properties of RF coated fibers indicate that RF resin reinforces the interface between the fibers. The method leads to improvement in mechanical properties of PUN.An improvement of about 94% and 281% in mechanical properties like tensile strength and modulus, respectively, compared to neat PUN fibers is achieved by coating with 20% wt/vol of RF solution.

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