A 40-year-old healthy manual labourer from a malaria endemic area with no known risk factors for atherosclerotic coronary vascular disease was admitted to our hospital with a history of fever with chills and rigours. Physical examination revealed tachypnoea and icterus. Peripheral smear showed trophozoites of Plasmodium vivax and thrombocytopaenia. The patient was administered artesunate. Six hours after admission, he complained of severe substernal chest pain. A 12-lead ECG revealed ST elevations in leads I, II and aVL. Troponin T and creatine kinase MB were elevated and the random blood sugar was 49 mg%. Echocardiogram revealed left ventricle lateral wall hypokinesia. Hypoglycaemia was corrected. A provisional diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome as a complication of malaria or its treatment was made. He was treated with low molecular weight heparin and nitrates. The patient improved symptomatically. A repeat ECG was normal. BACKGROUND

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Aim of the study:To study the IMT of the common carotid arteries and correlate with documented coronary artery disease.Patients and Methods:The study was conducted in subjects with history of coronary artery disease in the past and who presented with acute coronary syndrome. After detailed history and examination, investigations were carried out as per our protocol. The sample size was 100, with 70 in the case group and 30 in the control group (matched).B-mode ultrasonography scanning of the carotid arteries was performed and measurements were made at proximal, middle and distal segments of the common carotid arteries. Univariate analysis was used to confirm the significance of the variables and multiple regressions were used to predict the risk, based on significant variablesResults:The total study sample consisted of 100 subjects, of whom 70 were cases and 30 were controls. The case group comprised of a total of 70 patients with a mean age of 58.72 years. In the control group of 30 patients, the mean age was 62.73 years. In the study group, 77.1% (n=54) were males and 22.9% (n=16) were females. In the study group, 51.4% (n=36) were smokers compared with 13.3% (n=4) among the control group (P=0.001 vhs). In the study group, 20% (n=14) had diabetes while this was 13.3% (n=4) among the control group. In the study group, 52.96% (n=37) had hypertension while 16.7% (n=5) had hypertension in the control group (P=0.001 vhs). The mean total cholesterol among the study group was 197.4mg/dl while in the control group it was 175.9 mg/dl. Thirty-two percent of the patients with CAD had anterior lateral wall ischemia, 21% had anterior wall, 21% lateral wall, 19% inferior wall and 7% unstable angina. The mean carotid IMT in the study group was 0.923 ± 0.123 and in control group it was 0.689 ± 0.051 (P=0.001). The mean carotid intima thickness was significantly high in the case group as compared with the control, and the P-value was highly significant.Conclusion:The carotid IMT was found to be higher in patients with coronary artery disease, and there was a statistically significant difference between cases and controls. Thus, our study shows that carotid IMT is a marker of atherosclerosis that is strongly associated with risk factors and can be used as a surrogate marker in the prediction of atherosclerosis in coronary artery disease. As it is easily reproducible, carotid B-mode ultrasonography is a safe, non-invasive and reproducible procedure that helps in the early identification of clinical coronary artery disease.

Melioidosis which is endemic in South East Asia and Northern Australia is now being reported from the Indian subcontinents as well. Meliodosis rarely presents as pericardial effusion. We report a case of B. pseudomallei causing pericardial effusion from India, where the most common infective cause of pericardial effusion is Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The chronic presentation of melioidosis is not unlike tuberculosis, and the clinician must have a high index of suspicion to diagnose meliodosis, especially in geographical areas where both tuberculosis and melioidosis are prevalent.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jom.v13i2.9368 J Medicine 2012; 13 : 230-232

Churg–Strauss syndrome is a rare disease manifested by hypereosinophilia, vasculitis and tissue infiltration. This report describes the case of a 45-year-old man who presented with a history of fever, difficulty in breathing, reddish lesions over the extremities and inability to walk since two weeks. The cutaneous features prompted us to conduct serial lab investigations which led to an early, potentially life saving diagnosis.

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