This study investigated the disposition patterns of cocaine and opiates into hair and fingernail specimens collected from 8 volunteers enrolled in a 10-week inpatient clinical study. All subjects were African-American males with a confirmed drug use history. Scalp hair and fingernail scrapings were collected weekly throughout the course of the study. Head hair was collected from the posterior v...

or at the bronchial level), while access changed somewhat and the number of video-assisted thoracoscopic procedures increased in recent years. The incidence of subcutaneous emphysema associated with symptomatic cutaneous tension, palpebral occlusion, and modifications in tone of voice (defined as " severe " according to the criteria extensively described 1,2) was 1.3% (20 patients). All patient...

Unsupervised learning algorithms paying attention only to second-order statistics ignore the phase structure (higher-order statistics) of signals, which contains all the informative temporal and spatial coincidences which we think of as 'features'. Here we discuss how an Independent Component Analysis (ICA) algorithm may be used to elucidate the higher-order structure of natural signals, yieldi...

Onychopapilloma is a benign tumor of the nail bed and distal matrix and is the most common cause of localized longitudinal erythronychia. Here, we describe a case of onychopapilloma presenting as longitudinal leukonychia of the left 4th fingernail in a 71-year-old female. To date, this is only the ninth described case of onychopapilloma presenting as longitudinal leukonychia. We review the lite...

To determine the growth rate and element contents of fingernails in young adults, 109 apparently healthy college students were recruited for determination. As a result, the average growth rate of the left thumb was 3.14±0.63 mm/month with significantly faster rates in male and taller participants. The concentrations for Ca, Na, P, K, and Mg were 701.1±274.8 μg/g, 452.3±353.9 μg/g, 331.6±119.7 μ...

Subungual squamous cell carcinoma is a rare condition. Diagnosis is often delayed because it presents with minimal nail changes and mimics a number of benign nail conditions. We report a 43-year-old Chinese man who presented with a three-year history of an indolent melanotic macule of the fingernail. Histology from a punch biopsy revealed a well-differentiated squamous cell carcinoma. Wide loca...

A 34-year-old Lebanese man presented with photophobia, tearing, and reduced vision in the left eye, a few hours after being accidentally hit in the eye with a fingernail. The cornea in the left eye showed corneal defect . About three minutes after receiving topical fluorescein in this eye, the patient developed syncope and anaphylactic shock. After immediate reanimation, the patient regained co...