Isolated cerebral mucormycosis that looks like stroke and brain abscess:A case report and review of the literature

BACKGROUND Cerebral mucormycosis is an infectious disease of the brain caused by fungi of the order Mucorales.These infections are rarely encountered in clinical practice and are often misdiagnosed as cerebral infarction or brain abscess.Increased mortality due to cerebral mucormycosis is closely related to delayed diagnosis and treatment,both of which present unique challenges for clinicians.CASE SUMMARY Cerebral mucormycosis is generally secondary to sinus disease or other disseminated disease.However,in this retrospective study,we report and analyze a case of isolated cerebral mucormycosis.CONCLUSION The constellation of symptoms including headaches,fever,hemiplegia,and changes in mental status taken together with clinical findings of cerebral infarction and brain abscess should raise the possibility of a brain fungal infection.Early diagnosis and prompt initiation of antifungal therapy along with surgery can improve patient survival.

Asymptomatic traumatic rupture of an intracranial dermoid cyst:A case report

BACKGROUND Previous studies reported that most of the intracranial dermoid cyst ruptures were spontaneous,and only a few were traumatic,with asymptomatic much rarer than the symptomatic ruptures.Hence,how to deal with the asymptomatic traumatic rupture of intracranial dermoid cyst remains a challenge in the clinic.CASE SUMMARY A 59-year-old man was accidentally diagnosed with intracranial dermoid cyst through a cranial computed tomography(CT)scan due to a car accident.A mixed-density lesion with fat and a calcified margin was observed in the midline of the posterior fossa,accompanied with lipid droplet drifts in brain sulci,fissures,cisterns,and ventricles.After 1 wk of conservative observation,no change was observed on the updated cranial CT scan.After 2 wk of conservative observation,magnetic resonance imaging examination confirmed that the lesion was a traumatic rupture of a posterior fossa dermoid cyst with lipid droplet drifts.As the patient exhibited no adverse symptoms throughout the 2 wk,a 6-mo follow-up visit was arranged for him instead of aggressive treatment.Nonetheless,the patient did not show any abnormal neurological symptoms in the 6 mo of follow-up visits.CONCLUSION Asymptomatic traumatic rupture of intracranial dermoid cyst could be just followed or treated conservatively rather than treated aggressively.

Influence of impact velocity and impact attack angle of bullets on damage of human tissue surrogate--ballistic gelatin

Purpose Terminal performance of a bullet in human body is critical for the treatment of gunshot injury and optimization of bullet design.The effects of the impact velocity(v_(0))and the impact attack angle(δ_(0))of the bullet on its terminal performance was investigated,using a new evaluation method(called expansion method)based on the expansion of cracks and the permanent cavity wall in ballistic gelatin.Methods Ballistic gelatin was used to simulate human body.The 7.62 mm×39 mm rifle bullets with different v_(0)(600–76_(0)m/s)andδ_(0)(0°–6°)were fired into the gelatin blocks.The gelatin block was cut into slices of about 2_(0)mm thickness.The cracks and the permanent cavity on each slice were obtained manually.The damaged gelatin was determined using two methods:expanding the permanent cavity but ignoring the cracks,and expanding both the permanent cavity and the cracks.The relations between the damaged gelatin and v_(0)andδ_(0)were obtained using linear fitting method.Results According to the distribution of the damaged gelatin along the penetration depth,the damaged gelatin block could be divided into two parts:the less damaged part and the severely damaged part.The length of the less damaged part depends mostly onδ_(0);while the average damaged area of this part depends on bothδ_(0)as well as v_(0).The cracks contributed significantly to the total volume of damaged gelatin,particularly when the expansion was larger than 1.9 mm.The total damaged gelatin increases with v_(0),δ_(0)and the expansion extent.The average length of equivalent cracks grew with v_(0)andδ_(0)when considering the cracks,and decreased with v_(0)when ignoring the cracks.Conclusion The expansion method is suitable to investigate the influence of different factors of bullets on their terminal performance.The characteristics of the damaged gelatin have a linear relationship with the initial attack angle(δ_(0))and the initial velocity(v_(0))of the bullet.