Paragangliomas are uncommon tumors arising from the neuroendocrine elements (chief cells) of the paraganglia and symmetrically distributed along the aorta in close association with the sympathetic chain. Although functional tumors are easier to diagnose due to the clinical fi ndings caused by excess secretion of catecholamines and an elevation of the urinary catecholamine levels, however the diagnosis of nonfunctioning paraganglioma of the retroperitoneum is diffi cult and only few cases have been made before exploratory laparotomy. Although our patient was initially planned and operated by our gynaecological team, the incidental findings had to involve the general surgeons. She is fortunate that the tumour did not show any features of malignancy nor metastasis, however a long time follow up is needed in case of any possible recurrence.
Syringomyelia is a rare neurological disease, which is characterized by the formation of a cyst in the spinal cord. The aetiology of the disease still remains controversial. The damage to the spinal cord results in headache, weakness, stiffness and numbness on both lower and upper limbs. Only few a cases of syringomyelia in pregnancy have been reported thus far. As such, there is no standard management of intrapartum care.1 We present a case of symptomatic syringomyelia in pregnancy, its management and literature review. The mode of delivery with risks for vaginal route is discussed.
Urinary retention rarely affects women. In obstructive retention the source must be determined and treated to allow the patient to void normally. A common anatomic cause of urinary retention is extrinsic compression due to a pelvic mass. In addition, obstruction can also be seen in women with pelvic organ prolapse. Haematocolpos and uterine fibroids have also been documented as causes of acute urinary retention.
The following cases of female urinary retention highlight the need to consider haematocolpos in the adolescent girl who has not attained menarche and fibroids in the older female.
Much remains unknown about the population history of early modern humans in southeast Asia, where the archaeological record is sparse and the tropical climate is inimical to the preservation of ancient human DNA1. So far, only two low-coverage pre-Neolithic human genomes have been sequenced from this region. Both are from mainland Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherer sites: Pha Faen in Laos, dated to 7939-7751 calibrated years before present (yr cal BP; present taken as AD 1950), and Gua Cha in Malaysia (4.4-4.2 kyr cal BP)1. Here we report, to our knowledge, the first ancient human genome from Wallacea, the oceanic island zone between the Sunda Shelf (comprising mainland southeast Asia and the continental islands of western Indonesia) and Pleistocene Sahul (Australia-New Guinea). We extracted DNA from the petrous bone of a young female hunter-gatherer buried 7.3-7.2 kyr cal BP at the limestone cave of Leang Panninge2 in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Genetic analyses show that this pre-Neolithic forager, who is associated with the 'Toalean' technocomplex3,4, shares most genetic drift and morphological similarities with present-day Papuan and Indigenous Australian groups, yet represents a previously unknown divergent human lineage that branched off around the time of the split between these populations approximately 37,000 years ago5. We also describe Denisovan and deep Asian-related ancestries in the Leang Panninge genome, and infer their large-scale displacement from the region today.