Surgical treatment of a patient with placentoid transformation of the lower lobe of the right lung

Placentoid transformation (in English publications – placental transmogrification) extremely rare lung disease, characterized by formation of villous structures, which look like chorionic villus with pulmonary emphysema. We report the first case of 28 y. o. patient with giant placentoid transformation and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We used extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support for surgical management and it let the oxygen-dependent patient to return to normal life.

Heartbeats, Burdens, and Biofixtures

This paper addresses a dichotomy in the attitudes of some clinicians and bioethicists regarding whether there is a moral difference between deactivating a cardiac pacemaker in a highly dependent patient at the end of life, as opposed to standard cases of withdrawal of treatment. Although many clinicians hold that there is a difference, some bioethicists maintain that the two sorts of cases are morally equivalent. The author explores one potential morally significant point of difference between pacemakers and certain other life-sustaining treatments: specifically, that the former are biofixtures, which become part of the patient in a way that the latter do not. The concept of the pacemaker as biofixture grants pacemakers a unique moral status that gives reason to treat a pacemaker the same as other parts of the patient that are necessary to sustain life. The author employs this biofixture analysis to affirm the intuition that deactivating a pacemaker in a highly dependent patient at the end of life is, in moral terms, more analogous to active euthanasia than it is to standard cases of withdrawal of treatment. The paper concludes with consideration of potential implications for further implantable medical technologies, such as ventricular assist devices and total artificial hearts.

Bilateral pulmonary hydathidic cyst with fatal outlet: a case report

Hydatidosis is a parasitic zoonosis caused by Echinococcus Granulosus, its life cycle includes dogs, sheep and others; liver involvement is the most frequent (65%-75%), followed by the lung (10%-25%), in Peru the pulmonary location is 60%. Its signs and symptoms are produced by the mass effect, its superinfection or anaphylactic reactions secondary to its rupture. We present the case of a 24-year-old insulin-dependent patient with type I diabetes mellitus, hypertension and diabetic retinopathy with bilateral pulmonary hydatidosis. A cystectomy was performed without complications and a lobectomy that was complicated with admission to the ICU until the death of the patient. Diabetes mellitus causes a state of immunosuppression which caused the advanced state of the patient's parasitosis, as well as being related to multiple intra- and postoperative complications and even leading to the death of the patient.