DPO: Diffuse Pulmonary Ossification - A Diagnostic Challenge

Diffuse pulmonary ossification (DPO) is a rare condition of DLD (diffuse lung disease) characterized by the presence of metaplastic ectopic bone in the lungs and is less frequent in patients without a clear background of lung diseases. DPO is characterized by very small calcific nodules, often with bone mature located in both lungs and often in peripheral areas of the lungs. Two patterns of DPO have been recognized dendriform and nodular. The dendriform type is less common and is characterized by a coral-like network of bone spiculae along the alveolar septa and is often related to interstitial fibrosis or chronic obstructive lung disease [1]. Recent literature papers indicate that DPO may be a predictor of pulmonary fibrosis, is related to Usual Interstitial Pneumonia (UIP) pattern, and has a higher correlation with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). We present a case of a 41-years-old male with persistent bronchitis who underwent a chest X-ray (CXR) that showed multiple pulmonary small calcified nodules in both lungs. These findings were then defined with a high-resolution computed tomography of the chest (HRCT) that showed multiple small nodules spread in both lungs with a "tree-like pattern". A lung biopsy was performed to confirm the radiological diagnostic hypothesis of DPO, and further pathological examination showed multifocal areas of mature bone tissue within the lung parenchyma.

Cavitary lung metastasis as relapse of prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common non-cutaneous malignancy diagnosed in men. It usually metastasizes to bone as osteoblastic lesions on radiographs and regional lymph nodes, and uncommonly to lung, liver and brain. Metastatic prostate cancer recurrence after definitive local therapy can occur in any tissue. The role of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) for diagnosis of metastatic malignancies is well established in literature. We describe a 74 years old male, previously treated for localized prostate cancer, admitted to our Department after total body computed tomography revealed multiple irregular lung lesions some of which had an excavated appearance.

Chaos in neural networks with a nonmonotonic transfer function

Time evolution of diluted neural networks with a nonmonotonic transfer function is analytically described by flow equations for macroscopic variables. The macroscopic dynamics shows a rich variety of behaviors: fixed-point, periodicity, and chaos. We examine in detail the structure of the strange attractor and in particular we study the main features of the stable and unstable manifolds, the hyperbolicity of the attractor, and the existence of homoclinic intersections. We also discuss the problem of the robustness of the chaos and we prove that in the present model chaotic behavior is fragile (chaotic regions are densely intercalated with periodicity windows), according to a recently discussed conjecture. Finally we perform an analysis of the microscopic behavior and in particular we examine the occurrence of damage spreading by studying the time evolution of two almost identical initial configurations. We show that for any choice of the parameters the two initial states remain microscopically distinct.