08.06.2022: Acute exacerbation of rash is common in patients with atopic dermatitis and has diverse aetiology. We describe a patient with atopic dermatitis who developed a pruritic, burning and weeping rash. The rash quickly worsened and developed into a serious condition for which early diagnosis and treatment are crucial. A man in his forties developed pruritic sores on his throat that were burning and weeping. He had a history of mild atopic dermatitis (eczema), which he occasionally treated with cortisone cream, but was otherwise in good health. Over the next few days, his condition deteriorated...

08.06.2022: Rapid and thorough assessment of acute neuropsychiatric symptoms is essential for effective treatment. Here we describe a patient with a distinctive but relatively rare disease. A man in his forties presented to the out-of-hours emergency healthcare service with a 3-day history of lethargy, fever and headache, and was advised to contact his general practitioner (GP) the following day. Clinical examination by the GP proved unremarkable, and tests for infection were negative. CRP was within the reference range, <5 mg/L, and an influenza-like illness was suspected. Four years earlier, the patient...

07.06.2022: Investigation of fever in immunosuppressed patients can be challenging. Rapid and correct microbiological test results are essential for steering the investigation in the right direction. Our patient was eventually diagnosed with a condition that was initially suspected, but the time to reach a laboratory-confirmed diagnosis was unusually long. A woman in her sixties was admitted to the division of medicine with a high fever and altered mental status in late summer. The fever had persisted for four days and was accompanied by fatigue, feeling of dyspnoea, nausea and joint pain. She had a...

23.05.2022: A previously healthy boy presented to the healthcare services on several occasions with pain in his knee, ankle and foot. Clinical examinations and additional diagnostic testing initially revealed no red flags, but after 5 months, the boy was diagnosed with a serious and unexpected condition. A previously healthy boy of early school-age was brought by one of his parents to his general practitioner (GP) with pain in his right forefoot, after a trauma to the foot six days earlier. A plain radiograph revealed no sign of skeletal injury, and the pain was treated symptomatically with over-the...

04.04.2022: A young woman with a history of several serious intoxications was admitted to the Emergency Department with another suspected life-threatening intoxication. A rare phenomenon would prove to be life-saving. The patient was a young woman who on several occasions had been hospitalised for intoxication and given general anaesthesia for endotracheal intubation and gastric lavage as an emergency indication. Following one such episode about a year before the event in question, the patient developed a severe subglotic stenosis after extubation. It was not possible to determine whether the stenosis was...

02.03.2022: A man had been suffering from recurrent urticaria, fever and joint pain for approximately a year when, prior to elective knee surgery, he was also found to have elevated inflammatory markers. Further investigation led to the diagnosis of a rare disorder for which effective treatments are now available. A man in his fifties had had persistent pain in his right knee for the past year. He was diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the knee and was admitted to the orthopaedic department of his local hospital for elective arthroplasty. Apart from this long-term musculoskeletal condition, his health had...

28.02.2022: A man in his late sixties with treatment-resistant relapsing polychondritis and bone marrow failure was found to have a rare and newly identified syndrome not previously reported in Norway. A man in his late sixties was transferred to a university hospital with a query about underlying rheumatological disease. He had a case history of six months of reduced general condition, chest pain and episodes of iridocyclitis. He also had pain in the back of his head and transient pain in his jaw when chewing. He did not have any visual disturbances or musculoskeletal pain. Findings of a previous...

26.01.2022: At a routine neurology outpatient appointment, a woman in her sixties with a 30-year history of well-controlled epilepsy reported a recent seizure. The dose of her antiepileptic medication was therefore increased. However, the cause of the seizure turned out to be something else entirely. A woman in her sixties had been admitted to the neurology department some 30 years prior to the episode in question, with what was described in her medical records as a very convincing seizure with clear epileptic changes on an electroencephalogram (EEG). Prior to the seizure, she had been in good health with...