The case report describes a case of acute myocardial ischemia precipitated by propane butane inhalation. The dependency of this substance around the world is still moderate but is increasing due to the easy availability of the substance and the facility with which the effects can be concealed. The toxicity of the substance is significant; affecting the heart, the brain and the liver. The most common outcome is sudden death. In this article, we describe a survivor after an episode of acute poisoning and his interesting cardiac pathology.

Spontaneous pneumothorax in the setting of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has been first described as an unlikely complication, mainly occurring in critically ill patients or as a consequence of mechanical ventilation. We report a case with COVID-19 pneumonia followed by a spontaneous pneumothorax in a young non-smoker without any predisposing pathology.

Ischemic heart disease (IHD) affects > 110 million individuals worldwide and represents an important contributor to the rise in the prevalence of heart failure and the associated mortality and morbidity. Despite modern therapies, up to one-third of patients with acute myocardial infarction would develop heart failure. IHD is a pathologic condition of the myocardium resulting from the imbalance in a given moment between its oxygen demands and the actual perfusion. Acute and chronic forms of the disease may potentially lead to extensive and permanent damage of the cardiac muscle. From a clinical point of view, determination of the still viable extent of myocardium is crucial for the therapeutic protocol – since ischemia is the underlying cause, then revascularization should provide for a better prognosis. Different methods for evaluation of myocardial viability have been described – each one presenting some advantages over the others, being, in the same time, inferior in some respects. The review offers a relatively comprehensive overview of methods available for determining myocardial viability.

This is a 200-patient retrospective single-centre study focused on evaluating the contribution of echocardiography (Echo) findings as an initial screening tool in selecting intensive care unit (ICU) patients with suspected pulmonary embolism (PE) for further diagnostic evaluation with ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) scintigraphy. These 200 patients with suspected PE were referred for a V/Q scan. Of them, 24 had Еcho findings of a dilated right ventricle (RV), and 8 of the 24 (33%) had a positive V/Q scan for PE. Seven of those 8 patients (88%) had large pulmonary emboli. Of the remaining 176 patients (without dilated RV), the V/Q scan was positive for pulmonary emboli in 39 cases (22%). If evaluating only the patients positive for pulmonary emboli on V/Q scan (47 patients), 8 of them (17%) had a dilated RV, and 39 (83%) did not have a dilated RV. Thus, we found that Еcho mainly contributed to identifying patients with life-threatening large pulmonary thrombo-embolic disease. In contrast to the above, echocardiography was non-contributory in the presence of small PE. This finding was in congruence with the existing literature.