IntroductionPrimary cardiac cancer is a very rare disease, among which primary cardiac angiosarcoma is one of the most frequent type and is characterized by extremely poor prognosis without established optimal treatment.Case descriptionHere we report a case of primary cardiac angiosarcoma with hemorrhagic pericardial effusion who achieved a durable response with tumor excision followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy with docetaxel. A sixty year old man was presented with dyspnea and was diagnosed with primary cardiac angiosarcoma with hemorrhagic pericardial effusion. After surgical excision of primary tumor with microscopic residual disease followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy with docetaxel, the patient showed durable response of progression free survival of 12 months.Discussion and evaluationThis case shows benefit of concurrent chemoradiotherapy with taxane. Further investigation of aggressive multimodal treatment strategy is warranted for primary cardiac angiosarcoma with pauci-metastasis even when achievement of complete resection seems unlikely.

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a pathogen that causes a wide range of infections in the human body and has a tendency to metastasize to multiple organs. Endogenous Klebsiella endophthalmitis is an infrequent but often devastating septic metastatic infection. It tends to be fulminant and often rapidly progresses to permanent visual loss beyond 24 hours after symptom onset, despite therapy with appropriate antibiotics, particularly with a delay in diagnosis and treatment. While endogenous Klebsiella endophthalmitis has mostly been reported in association with primary liver abscesses, it has rarely been reported with other Klebsiella infections including renal abscesses. Here, we present a case of a 73-year-old diabetic female diagnosed with a Klebsiella renal abscess and endogenous endophthalmitis, after developing left flank pain and bilateral decreased visual acuity. She was treated with systemic antibiotics, percutaneous abscess drainage, an intravitreal antibiotics injection, and a vitrectomy. While the renal abscess slowly resolved, the symptoms of endophthalmitis persisted despite treatment. This report suggests that endogenous endophthalmitis should be considered when diabetic patients with renal abscesses complain of ocular symptoms.

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Glomerular epithelial cells (GECs) are known to play a key role in maintaining the structure and function of the glomerulus. GEC injury induced by hyperglycemia is present in early-stage diabetic nephropathy (DN), which is the most common cause of renal failure. In an attempt to identify target proteins involved in the pathogenesis of GEC injury at early DN, we performed the proteomic analysis using primary cultures of GECs, prepared from the dissected rat glomeruli. The protein expression profiles in the two-dimensional electrophoresis gels were compared between GECs treated for three days with normal glucose (5 mM) and those with high glucose (30 mM) concentrations. These concentrations correspond to blood glucose concentrations under normoglycemia and hyperglycemia, respectively. Proteins with differential expression levels were identified using ESI-Q-TOF tandem mass spectrometry. The primary GECs cultured in hyperglycemic conditions showed cellular hypertrophy and increased production of reactive oxygen species, both of which reflect the GEC injury. Our proteomic analysis identified eight proteins with differential expression profiles, depending on glucose concentrations. Among them, we selected ATP synthase β subunit and enolase 2 that are related to energy metabolism and are down-regulated under hyperglycemia, and confirmed that hyperglycemia decreased the expression levels of ATP synthase β subunit and enolase 2 proteins by western blotting analysis. Hyperglycemia may impair mitochondrial function and alter glycolysis in GECs by down-regulating the expression of ATP synthase β subunit and enolase 2. The present study may provide a better understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms of GEC injury in early DN.