The recent epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome caught many by surprise. Hitherto, infection control has not been in the forefront of radiological practice. Many interventional radiology (IR) services are therefore not equipped to deal with such a disease. In this review, we share our experience from the interventional radiologist's perspective, report on the acute measures instituted within our departments and explore the long-term effects of such a disease on the practice of IR.

Embolization is effective for treatment of moderate to massive hemoptysis. The majority of our cases were due to tuberculosis. Approximately one third had nonbronchial systemic artery contributions, indicating that a concerted search for these is mandatory.

Surveillance of infrainguinal grafts by duplex scanning is effective and has resulted in high rates of limb salvage and secondary patency in patients who presented with critical ischaemia.

A 40 year old Pakistani woman presented with one month history of fever, night sweats, and progressive and painful swelling in the right side of the neck. She was febrile (temperature 38-40ºC). Right deep cervical, occipital, and jugulodiagastric lymph nodes were palpable, firm, and tender. Save for a moderately severe asymmetrical arthralgia of right wrist, shoulder and proximal interphalangeal joints, the rest of her physical examination was unremarkable. Laboratory data showed, mild leucopenia of 3.6 × 10 9 /l with 64% neutrophils, 26% lymphocytes (no atypical form), and 10% monocytes, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) 64 mm/hour, and C reactive protein of 105 mg/l (normal <10 mg/l). A skin test for tuberculin reactivity was negative. Results of chest radiography, blood chemistry, urine and stool analysis, throat swab, blood cultures, Venereal Disease Research Laboratory test, test for HIV, heterophil antibodies, and serological studies for salmonella serotypes, brucellosis, toxoplasmosis, Lyme disease, Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, human T cell leukaemia Answers on p 663.