Ankylosing Spondylitis of the spine.

This basically means the inflammation and stiffness of a joint and in this selection I picked the spine. This is usually chronic and progressive form of seronegative arthritis. It usually affects the lumbosacral joint. Emedicine explained the Pathophysiology as; " The basic pathologic lesion of ankylosing spondylitis occurs at the entheses, which are sites of attachment to bone of ligaments, tendons, and joint capsules. Enthesopathy results from inflammation, with subsequent calcification and ossification at and around the entheses. Inflammation with cellular infiltration by lymphocytes, plasma cells, and polymorphonuclear leukocytes is associated with erosion and eburnation of the subligamentous bone. The process usually starts at the sacroiliac joints. Other enthesopathic sites include the iliac crest, ischial tuberosity, greater trochanter, patella, and calcaneum. In the paravertebral soft tissues, the lesion manifests as a formation of new bone within the outer layers of the annulus fibrosis of the intervertebral disk. The margins of the disk are invaded by hyperemic granulation tissue arising from the subchondral bone. This tissue replaces the disk fibers with new bone." I quoted the whole thing just in case I missed something and didn't explain it correctly. From what I read, there are no cures for this and it starts at young ages. They usually give pain medication for the pain. This is another one of those "well this sucks" moments. :)

Carotid Dissection

This type of dissection can be spontaneous intracranially or extracranially. It is a significant cause of ischemic strokes which are basically mini strokes. They can be caused by major or minor trauma if there is such a thing. Most ischemic cerebral symptoms arise from thromboembolic events; therefore, early institution of antithrombotic treatment provides the best outcome. its works best if given within three hours. We have beat this horse in interventional so ill just put some cool pictures. Everyone knows that it can be caused during procedure unintentionally. THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING :)

THYROID GOITER.....MY GRANNY HAD ONE ONCE

Ok so I picked thyroid goiter, mainly cause its is short and easy to explain and my granny Berry had one removed a while back. I remember when i was little seeing it on her neck and i just thought she was weird and crazy granny had a crazy disease, I was half right. A defect in the normal synthesis of the TSH ( thyroid stimulating hormone) is the most common reason for a goiter in America. It comes form the pituitary (wow imagine that, I probably could of guess that, im really learning :)...) and it enlarges the thyroid. Ok back to my granny, I remember seeing it completely around her neck and then almost on the side after a couple months. She was really scaring looking when she was yelling at me and my bros especially with that huge goiter. Anyways I believe she had hers removed a while ago, but some other treatments are available. One is taking a pill that reduces the TSH. And obviously you can have them surgically removed and i bet now days they dont leave a huge scar. I believe a malignant goiter only happens in like 5%. Also another reason to remove a goiter is cosmetic reasons (I guarantee this is why my granny got hers taken off, she was always complaining about how she looked and well now she doesn't look mean anymore, just a little crazy ;)...) oh yeah you can see enlarged thyroids on xrays.

I LOVE MY GRANNY

BERRY (saccular) Aneurysm

A saccular aneurysm resembles a small sack. A berry (haha yeah thats right berry) aneurysm is usually saccular. When the blood vessel weakens it can bulge out and eventually could rupture and create internal bleeding which could lead to death if untaken care of. Some options are surgery by placing a clip or stabilize the vessel with a stent if it could help. Also they can divert the blood if it isnt a very large vessel that wouldnt put the risk to high.Some rare symptoms that have happen to two patients when they described to have an unusual cause of transient ischemic attacks due to berry aneurysms of the extracranial part of the internal carotid artery. Obviously we all know what they are and i just wanted to show some cool pictures of this and just make you all aware of such a scary problem but still happens to have a cool name. ;)

Nasal polyps

What are nasal polyps?

Paranasal sinuses are air cavities within the skull that open into the nose. If the soft tissue lining of the sinuses becomes inflamed or swollen, it fills the surounding space and can then expand into the nose forming a growth called a polyp. There are a lot of small sinuses between the eye and the nose, when polyps do occur, there will usually be a bunch of them. When they are large they can block the normal breathing pattern. Sometimes they can be treated with nasal sprays, but if it is serious they can be removed with surgery with an endoscope. They can be identified with a ct image or MRI scan. They are very obvious because they fill the spaces. Although they can be removed, polyps can grow back so basically they are very annoying.

CAVERNOUS HEMANGIOMA OF ORBIT

Cavernous hemangioma of the orbit are hamartomatous, vascular lesions, more frequent in middle aged women. They represent the most common benign primitive neoplasm of the orbit. They usually involve large groupings of blood vessels and can be removed with surgery with high risk due to locations near vital arteries. They also create blood clots that use so many platelets that the bone marrow can not keep up the production for the demand. Oral steroids can be used to reduce the size of these growths, but for serious cases surgery is the primary choice.

What is Acromegaly?

Acromegaly is a hormonal disorder that usually occurs in middle aged men and women. There is about 5,000 cases per million people in the world. This is actually higher than I would have expected. The symptoms develope over time and usually affect extremities. Patients with acromegaly often suffer from headaches, excessive sweating, joint disorders, soft tissue swelling and a progressive coarsening of facial features and enlargement of the hands, feet and jaw. People that havent been treated face a mortality rate two to four times higher than average people.The word Acromegaly means great extremities. It affects the pituitary gland causing it to produce to much growth hormone. I would classify these people as giants of the world because of there great size. I know as a child that one of my favorite actors Richard Kiel reminds me of this condition. He lived a long life with this disease. He played the famous villian named "Jaws" in the James Bond series and some might know him as the crazy boss of Happy Gilmore in the movie Happy Gilmore. Information gathered from emedicine.com.

Fibroinflammatory Pseudotumor of the Temporal Bone

Um yeah, what a mouth full! Well a fibroinflammatory pseudotumor is said to be clinically malignant tumor but the lesions are said to be benign. It can occur in many places in the human body, but occurs rarely in the temporal bone. While there are very few that have this disease, symptoms were similar. Vertigo, pain, and swelling at the site are common. This isn's a very common disease of the temporal bone, but I want to list something different. The tumors are said to be slow growing but very apparent when in the temporal bone. In one case a women notice a increase in pain on her face and a loss of hearing that progressed over time. Once swelling occured she went to the hospital to get a MRI. Most are treated by surgery and the others with steroids and radiations. Some say it happens due to chronic infections or autoimmune problems.

References:http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2435470

http://www.ajnr.org/cgi/content/abstract/24/10/2092

CRANIOPHARYNGIOMA.....yeah say that 3 times fast :p

Well for my selection of a brain pathology, I picked Craniopharygioma! What a crazy name, right? I'm going to give some suggested origins, symptoms and treatment for this disease. ENJOY!

ORIGIN: Craniopharygioma is a calcified cystic tumor located in the craniopharyngeal duct and/or Rathke cleft (pouch that usually closes in early fetal developement). Basically there are two ideas for were this come from and why it occurs. The first is the embryogenetic theory which involves CP duct and Rathke cleft. It is suggested that the remnant ectoblastic cells which in turn transform and create this tumor. The second is the Metaplastic theory which is defined as: "the residual squamous epithelium (derived from stomodeum and normally part of the adenohypophysis), which may undergo metaplasia."HAHAHAHA, yeah I'm going to quote that peach of a definition. Now I will put that in "Sean terms." Basically the cells in the general area of interest were differentiated cells and during a period of time they changed into a different type of mature cell. :)


SYMPTOMS: Some of the most common symptons include headaches, endocrine dysfunctions, and visual problems. It is said that 80% of adults complain of a not so happy or healthy sexual drive and about 90% of the men complain of impotence while women complain of amenorrhea (no menstrual period). As far as I can tell, this brain tumor is looking pretty nasty. Good news though for the young patients with this disease, most under 20 years of age survive this disease. Survival rate for those older than 65 is poor.

TREATMENT: Most stated that surgery is a very popular treatment in a attempt to remove the tumor. Also radiation therapy and chemotherapy are popular choices of treatment.

CONCLUSION: In conclusion I would like to state that even though I did make jokes and try to entertain you readers, I want to make it clear that Craniopharyngioma is a very serious brain disease and it shouldnt be taken lightly. Joking his how I deal with sometimes boring and uninteresting topics and hopefully my little ad libs were not to annoying to read. For more information on this topic I strongly suggest checking out this website: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1157758-overview
I got most of my information from this site. Other definitions were taken from Wikipedia. for you further enjoyment I have added some pictures! Can you tell what types of images they are?

Future goal :)