Azmy Al-Hadidy | PubMed Health

PubMed2005

Familial short fifth metacarpals and insulin resistance.

Very few reports on the phenotype of short fifth metacarpals have been published in the medical literature. We report a Jordanian family in which three sisters aged 15, 13 and 8 years revealed bilateral shortening of the fifth fingers and radiological shortening of the fifth metacarpals. The father had unilateral short fifth metacarpal. The elder two sisters, their father as well as their brother and another sister manifested insulin resistance. Spherocytosis was diagnosed in one of the girls and her father. The parents are non-consanguineous. This constellation of findings has not been previously reported and could point to the presence of two disorders segregating in the family or to a novel syndrome with autosomal dominant inheritance and variable expressivity.

Child↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Factors affecting common bile duct diameter.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The purpose of the study was to see the effect of age, sex, body mass index, previous cholecystectomy, hepatomegaly and fasting status on the common bile duct diameter. METHODOLOGY: A series of 463 patients, 283 females and 180 males, with no hepatobiliary or pancreatic pathology were included in this study, the mean age was 45 +/- 16 years. Their age, sex, weight, height, fasting status and previous cholecystectomy was assessed and recorded by a physician prior to ultrasound examination. All patients were examined by real-time ultrasound to see if there was any pathology in the hepatobiliary and pancreatic area. Those with history of common bile duct exploration, endoscopic sphincterotomy or with previous history of cholecystectomy of less than 6 months and patients with common bile duct pathology were excluded from the study. The midportion of the common bile duct was taken as a fixed measurement for all patients and the size of the liver was also recorded. Analysis of variance as part of SPSS statistical package was used where common bile duct was considered a dependent variable, while sex, fasting status, hepatomegaly and previous cholecystectomy were considered to be independent variables, age and sex were considered as co-variants. RESULTS: The factors found to be significantly affecting the diameter of the common bile duct (P<0.05) were age, previous cholecystectomy and body mass index. CONCLUSIONS: If the CBD dilatation can not be explained by age, previous cholecystectomy and BMI, a pathology causing obstruction should be ruled out.

Adult↗