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[EN VIDÉO] Interview 4/5: what prospects for nanomedicine? Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology to the medical world. It includes fields such as the administration of drugs in the form of nanoparticles as well as the use of nanorobots. Dominique Vinck, sociologist of science and innovation, tells us about the future of nanomedicine.
A 72-year-old man pushes the doors from the emergency room of a hospital in Dayton, Ohio in the United States, with a worry rather atypical health. He tells the doctors that he hasn’t been able to breathe well for some time and that his scrotum is making a hissing sound with every breath he takes. movements. This “hissing scrotum” or pneumoscrotum in medical jargon is a very rare clinical condition, only about fifty cases are described in the medical literature. The case of this man is even more mysterious since the doctors failed to identify the origin of the flow ofair that made their patient’s scrotum sing.
Air escaping from the scrotum
A pneumoscrotum can be spontaneous, that is, air accumulates in the skin surrounding the testiclesfor no apparent reason, or induced by trauma – an accident physical or surgical injury. When injury or trauma occurs in the lungs or in the gastrointestinal tract, air can leak into the body. It then travels and can diffuse into the neck, theabdomen and here, the scrotum. In the cases described in the medical literature, the air present in the scrotum comes from the lungs, damaged by a pneumothorax. At to scanour patient has pneumothorax but also pneumomediastinum – the presence of air in the mediastinuman anatomical structure of the thoraxone of the emphysemas subcutaneous (an air bubble under the skin) in the area between the anus and scrotum and on the thighs.
Although lungs of the patient are in poor condition, the doctors are not sure that his pneumothorax is indeed responsible for the hissing emitted by his scrotum. ” The mechanism will probably remain unknown “, they write in American Journal of Case Reports.
This man is the only one known with a pneumoscrotum from which air can actually escape and “hiss”. The patient had undergone an operation five months before his arrival in the emergency room for a chronic infection of the epididymis. The operation left him with a wound that did not healed, letting the air escape. All’s well that ends well for the patient since he ” has been successfully treated with several drains chest tubes, subcutaneous drains to remove air, and general care “.
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