A 40-Year-Old Woman With Back Pain

A 54-year-old woman with degenerative back pain.

Back pain is a common symptom: up to 70% of UK adults experience this symptom by the age of 60 and most have moderate to severe pain. Back pain accounted for 12% of consultations to traditional acupuncturists in 2001 and is one of the most common reasons for consultation with an acupuncturist. This case report concerns a 54-year-old woman with metastatic breast cancer and degenerative lower bac...

A 40-year-old woman with excoriated skin lesions.

A 40-year-old woman presents to the clinic with multiple excoriated lesions over her chest, arms, abdomen, and upper back (Figure 1, Figure 2). The lesions have been present for many years; a few of them show signs of recent bleeding. She denies any history of itching, insect bites, exposure to new medications or jewelry, allergies, recent change in medications, travel, or intravenous drug abus...

49-year-old woman with chest pain.

A 40-year-old woman with lung cavitation.

A 40-year-old woman presented to the emergency room with intermittent fever, cough, haemoptysis and dyspnoea for one week. She also had a history of episodic breathlessness with wheezing for the last 5 years. She did not drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, denied intravenous drug abuse or use of steroids. On physical examination, the patient was febrile (temperature, 38.5°C), tachypnoeic and tachyc...

An 81 Year Old with Back Pain

You see an 81-year-old man in the emergency department. He has been troubled by abdominal and back pain that has been worsening over the last two days. He has smoked 20 cigarettes a day for the last 60 years. On examination his heart rate is 110 beats per minute and his blood pressure is 130/80 mmhg. He is tender over the central abdomen and you feel a pulsatile mass above the umbilicus. You re...