Solution to picture of the week #8, and this week’s image November 24, 2007
Posted by tomography in Picture of the week, Radiology.Tags: CT, Ductus Botalli, fetal circulation, Trichophagia
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Ductus botalli is one of three vital shunts in the fetal circulation. The other two are the foramen ovale, and the ductus venosus. After birth, smooth muscle cells in the ductus Botalli react to falling levels of prostaglandin by constriction therefore reducing the flow of blood in the vessel. It is usually completely closed by the fourth up to the tenth day after birth, and it is reduced to what is known by the name of ligamentum arteriosum.
Failure of closure (patent ductus arteriosus) results in a left-to-right shunt in the newborn’s circulation. This in turn allows oxygen rich and poor blood to mix, and may also lead to pulmonary hypertension, heart failure, and arrhythmia. Conservative treatment includes non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, for instance indomethacin or ibuprofen. If conservative treatment fails, surgical correction isinevitable.
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You will never guess what this week’s image is, or will You?! Give it a try:
Flock
a specimen from someone with trichophagia….a condition in which the patient eats their hair….in this case, it appears to have been removed and still retaining the shape of the persons stomach.
MK, you are quite right! This is a large mass of human hair that the girl could not digest. Doctors looked into her stomach with gastroscope but obviously surgical removal of the mass was necessary that is why it has the shape of her stomach.