A possible new risk factor causing pneumomediastinum in a middle-aged patient: Anatomical weakness in the bronchial wall

Abstract

International Journal of Case Reports and Images (IJCRI) is an international, peer reviewed, monthly, open access, online journal, publishing high-quality, articles in all areas of basic medical sciences and clinical specialties.Aim of IJCRI is to encourage the publication of new information by providing a platform for reporting of unique, unusual and rare cases which enhance understanding of disease process, its diagnosis, management and clinico-pathologic correlations.IJCRI publishes Review Articles, Case Series, Case Reports, Case in Images, Clinical Images and Letters to Editor. Website: www.ijcasereportsandimages.comA possible new risk factor causing pneumomediastinum in a middle-aged patient: Anatomical weakness in the bronchial wallHirofumi Namiki, Kazuhiko Matsuno, Tadashi Kobayashi ABSTRACT Introduction: Pneumomediastinum is a rare condition that occurs after physical trauma or other situations that lead to air leakage into the mediastinum. The present report describes a middle-aged patient with pneumomediastinum caused by breath-holding at work. Case Report: A 59-year-old Japanese male presented sudden coughing immediately after breath-holding at work. A chest X-ray was normal, and a computed tomography scan showed pneumomediastinum. The patient had no other predisposing factors for pneumomediastinum, such as trauma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or airway infection. Bronchoscopy revealed an anatomical weakness in the bronchial wall. He recovered with two months of conservative treatment. Conclusion: Pneumomediastinum should be considered in middle-aged patients who develop sudden coughing immediately after breath-holding. Anatomical weakness in the bronchial wall should be considered as a possible new risk factor.

Academic start-up support using tele-education improved self-esteem of a rural general physician

“…Among freely available ICT, Zoom Video Communications (https://zoom.us/), software that allows users to share their personal computer screens at low line speeds, and Face book (http://www.facebook.com/), a social networking service (SNS), were used with only anonymous personal data. As evidence of the academic activities supported by this system, rural physician HN prepared his first 2, previously published 3,4 English-language case reports. We evaluated the effects of this intervention using three types of analyses: qualitative analysis of semi-structured interview to the learner; quantitative analysis of the article-writing process and the number of consultations by method of communication; text-mining analysis (a method and system for dividing unconstrained collections of sentences into words and phrases using natural language analysis techniques and analyzing their occurrence frequency and correlation to extract useful information) of text data through SNS and e-mail for the consultations between the instructor and the learner.…”