Not so benign

MGUS: not so benign after all.

I t is well appreciated that persons with multiple myeloma have an increased risk of venous thrombosis. More recently, this relative risk has been shown to be increased further in these patients while on therapy with thalidomide and its derivatives. The mechanism of this increased risk for thrombosis has traditionally been attributed to traditional neoplasia risks for thrombosis, such as decrea...

Lean NAFLD: A not so benign condition?

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a worldwide epidemic with global prevalence estimated at 25%. Although NAFLD is usually associated with obesity, patients who are not obese can also present with NAFLD; this is known as “lean NAFLD.” Lean NAFLD is defined as NAFLD that develops in patients with a body mass index (BMI) <25 kg/m. The prevalence of lean NAFLD varies from 7% in the United...

Asymptomatic hyperuricemia: perhaps not so benign?

Case report: jin bu huan--not so benign herbal medicine.

Case description A 45-year-old white woman consulted her family physician regarding 4 to 6 weeks of nausea and mild pruritus, followed by 2 to 3 days of white stools. She was a smoker with a history of mild asthma, migraine, and back pain attributed to spondylolisthesis* and had last seen her doctor 16 months previously for a complete physical examination. At this visit, physical findings inclu...

H. capsulatum: A Not-So-Benign Cause of Pericarditis

The common causes of pericarditis and its course are benign in the majority of cases. Thus, further testing is usually not pursued and treatment for a presumptive viral etiology with nonsteroidal agents and steroids has been an accepted strategy. We present a patient with pericarditis who was unresponsive to first-line therapy and was subsequently found to have necrotizing granulomas of the per...