Medical Inspection – Health Blog

Almost all foreign bodies according to the wound sites an be demonstrated using radiological methods (native picture, ultrasound examination, xeroradio- graphy, CT, MRI). Stab wound to the spinal cord by a pencil are rare but result in a serious problem such as paraplegia. In spinal penetrating cases, magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) is reported to be useful. MRI can show that the foreign body had passed the spinal cord, causing marked indentation of the cord and dura with air along its track. In evaluating the patient with a presumed intraorbital foreign body, computerized tomography (CT) is the most valuable tool. CT can provide critical information regarding location and composition. There are several reports of unrecognized intraorbital or periorbital foreign bodies diagnosed as graphite pencil fragments by CT. There can be CT findings such as dense linear fragment due to the graphite (graphite is surprisingly dense and may be mistaken for a bone fragment or partial volume averaging of a bone margin), chronic osteomyelitis or benign reactive osteitis adjacent to the dense fragment and soft tissue mass surrounding the dense graphite fragment at its center. In investigating any soft-tissue mass, skin biopsy is most important before embarking on definitive treatment.

Read More…

In childhood, there can be many accidental traumas by pencils while playing with friends. In most cases, children are afraid of being blamed for the accidents by their parents, so they usually do not notify an adult and leave the wounds as they are. If these pencil lead wounds are left as they are, the lead would remain, possibly resulting in unde­sirable local pain, pigmentation, graphite foreign body reaction, and abscess formation. Wounds should carefully be inspected by a school nurse or a medical doctor at the time of the accidental trauma.

Read More…

A 19-year old woman presented with an asympto­matic papule of a 10 year duration. On general inspection, a solitary well-defined 0.5 x 0.3 cm blue papule on the right index finger was observed (Fig. 1A, B). In history taking, she recalled having a trauma with a pencil 10 years ago. She removed the remaining pencil by herself and remembered there was no material left on the stab wound site. A diagnosis of blue nevus was made based on the clinical findings. The punch biopsy contained a piece of material that resembled pencil lead, having a 0.3 cm length (Fig. 1C). Histological evaluation of the punch biopsy demonstrated increased basal pigmentation and small scattered carbon pigments in the dermis (Fig. 2). Read More…

INTRODUCTION

Injury by a pencil is common and usually trivial. However, several reports indicate that stab injuries caused by pencils can result in undesirable reac­tions, such as pigmentation, abscess formation, and soft tissue reaction. There are only a few previous case reports in literature of pencil core granuloma presenting to dermatologists, plastic surgeons, ophthalmologists, and neurosurgeons as a suspected melanoma, soft tissue sarcoma, hemangioma or abscess. Read More…

Molluscum contagiosum is a cutaneous skin neoplasm caused by a DNA virus from the poxvirus family. Spread of the infection is presumed to be due to direct contact, contact by contaminated fomites as well as by communal activities such as public or Turkish baths, sharing bath towels in gymnasiums, wrestlers, masseurs, tattooing and swimming public pools. Schwartz et al. found that lesions identified in patients with HIV infection were limited to the face and neck region, and noted that extensive MC of facial hair areas was common, suggesting spread through shaving. Lee et al. described a case of molluscum folliculitis after shaving leg hair. There is another case report of cutaneous transmission of MC during an orienteering competition. Here we report a case of a woman who developed MC after vigorous friction with a communal rough nylon towel used at a spa. In this case, molluscum contagiosum was noted within two weeks of using the towel considering the incubation period for MC ranges between two and seven weeks, this is consistent with the history of the patient presented here. We suspect that the shared rough nylon towel at the spa was the possible route of viral spread after breaking the skin barrier. We propose the pathogenic hypotheses that the towel was a primary source of MC infection due to being an ‘ideal environment’ in which to harbor the MC virus, that or the spa may has been contaminated by viruses and the virus was inoculated easily through the abrasion site. This patient appeared to suffer minor abrasions from scrubbing with the towel, and then inoculation with the virus occurred.

Read More…

A 31-year-old woman presented with small papules on her amis. These lesions were noted about two weeks after she visited a spa. At the spa she removed a mud treatment by scrubbing her body with a rough bath towel that was shared by others. The custom of scrubbing with a rough bath towel is common at spas in South Korea. Ten days later, the patient noted several skin-colored erythematous papules at the sites scrubbed with the towel at the spa. Physical examinations revealed several adjacent, raised, flesh-colored to slightly reddish, centrally umbilicated, hard papules on the arms (Fig. 1). Read More…

INTRODUCTION

Molluscum contagiosum (MC) is a poxvirus infection of the skin characterized by discrete, smooth, pearly to flesh-colored, dome-shaped pa­pules, often umbilicated with a white, cordlike core; these papules frequently cluster in groups. MC vims is transmitted by person-to-person contact and possibly by fomites, as poxviruses are resistant to desiccation. The inoculation period is two to seven weeks. Read More…