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A 71-year-old woman was admitted to hospital because of malaise and bloody stool. Laboratory findings consistently showed anemia (Hb 9.2 g/dl) and occult blood in the stool. Although barium series and endoscopy of the upper and lower intestinal tructs were carried out, there was no evidence of bleeding from the gastrointestinal tract 99mTcO4- scintigraphy, which was performed to exclude bleeding from Meckel's diverticulum, also did not locate a significant lesion. Angiographic imaging of the superior mesenteric arteries (SMA) was performed to exclude lesions such as small intestine tumors with extraluminal growth and vascular abnormalities such as A-V malformation and it revealed the round encasement of arteries in the peripheral SMA region, strongly suggestive of a small intestine tumor. Surgery was performed and an extraluminally protruding tumor was found in the small intestine. The excised tumor was 4 x 3 x 3.5 cm in size, are was diagnosed histologically as aberrant pancreas. The postoperative laboratory findings showed that the anemia had improved and occult blood was not detected in the stools. Although aberrant pancreas of the small intestine is a common benign tumor, it is a very unusual cause of bleeding from the alimentary tract.

A 70-year-old man was admitted to our hospital for further evaluation of recurrent fever, which had begun in October 1994. The patient had 5 to 7 days without fever, and then 2 to 3 days of fever. He had headaches during the febrile periods. On admission, he had abnormal pyramidal, extrapyramidal, and celebellar signs, and nuchal rigidity during the febrile period. However, these neurological abnormalities were completely absent during the afebrile period. Examination of cerebrospinal fluid revealed pleocytosis of mononuclear cells. During the febrile period, pleocytosis was associated with high levels of IgG, IL-6, TNF-alpha, and PGE2 in the cerebrospinal fluid. Administration of indomethacin prevented the fever, which suggests that abnormal production of cytokines in the cerebrospinal fluid contributes to fever in Mollaret meningitis.

A 90-year-old man fell into a marsh and was rescued 18 hours later. When he was admitted to our emergency room, physical examination revealed no remarkable findings except for many abrasions on his skin. Laboratory examination revealed a serum CPK level of 46, 904 IU/L, which had further increased to 84,678 IU/L by the following day. Oliguria developed on the second day, along with an increase in serum creatinine to 5.5 mg/dt. Hemodialysis was considered for the treatment of acute renal failure, but his renal function recovered soon by the continuation of conservative fluid therapy. Fluid therapy may be an effective and easy treatment for acute renal failure due to the crush syndrome, even in very old patients.