Search

Coccidioidomycosis is a fungal disease endemic to the southwestern United States. The primary form of the disease is relatively benign and many patients, after exposure by inhalation of the sapyrophytic form of the organism, convert from negative to positive skin testing without significant clinical symptoms. The less common disseminated form represents a serious life-threatening disease and can present with granulomatous changes in the larynx. The authors' experience with disseminated coccidioidomycosis presenting in the larynx of adults and infants successfully treated with amphotericin B are presented and discussed.

Sebaceous glands are omnipresent dermal appendages, and ectopic or metaplastic sebaceous elements occur frequently in the head and neck, notably in approximately one fourth of parotid glands. Sebaceous carcinoma is rare, however, and only seven cases of this lesion in the parotid gland have been previously reported.An additional case is presented herein, and the salient clinical and morphologic features of all eight cases are tabulated. Although their behavior and histopathology varied widely, these tumors were generally slow-growing but potentially aggressive. A variety of etiologic factors have been proposed, but most, or perhaps all, of the lesions could be variants of or derived from mucoepidermoid tumors. Wide surgical excision has proved to be the only successful method of therapy.

Visual loss following blepharoplasty is rare in occurrence and even more rare in medical literature. A case involving a 57-year-old woman with blepharoplasty apparently secondary to intraorbital hemorrhage is reported. The signs and symptoms along with a possible mechanism of injury and modes of therapy are discussed.Awareness of the potential severity of intraorbital hemorrhage with prompt recognition and institution of decisive therapy should result in fairly rapid and complete visual recovery.

Respiratory function of the paralyzed animal larynx can be reestablished by implanting the phrenic nerve into the posterior cricoarytenoid muscle immediately after section of the recurrent laryngeal nerve. Clinically, it is not unusual to observe spontaneous return of vocal cord function up to six months from the onset of paralysis when the nerve injury does not involve complete transection. This study was designed to determine the period of denervation within which the posterior cricoarytenoid muscle can be effectively reinnervated by phrenic nerve implant. The degree of functional reinnervation becomes less as the period of denervation increases and there appears to be a time beyond which effective reinnervation is not possible.

The article presents studies which show the occurence of multilevel corpectomy, preoperative myelopathy, and gender among patients with C5 palsy risk factors in Baltimore, Maryland.