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Inflammatory pseudotumors are a rare pathology and scarcely reported in the literature and have been associated with polymicrobial infections. Here, we present the case of a 9 years old boy from Bolivia, who presented with abdominal pain, weight loss and vomiting, who was diagnosed with a thoraco-abdominal pseudotumor. The micro-biology and molecular laboratories in tissue allowed the identification of one of the probable etiological agents.

The body temperatures of mature lean and obese C57BL/6J mice were measured just after feeding, during ad libitum access to food, or every 24 h throughout a 3-day fast. Obese mice had body temperatures 1.0-1.4 degrees C lower than lean mice in the postprandial state and during ad libitum feeding. During food deprivation, obese mice became more hypothermic than lean sex-matched controls. A 5 degrees C fall in body temperature was observed in mutant females in the first 24 h of starvation, about twice that seen in any other experimental group. Over the same period the temperature changes of obese males and lean females were similar and both groups had larger hypothermic responses than lean males. The present results indicate that both genotype and gender affect thermoregulation in these mice. Under normal colony room conditions (ad libitum feeding, 23 degrees C) the ob/ob mutation is expressed by lower body temperatures which along with hypoactivity and hyperphagia account for the high rates of energy storage. When food availability is limited, females of both phenotypes display an increased capacity to reduce their maintenance energy requirements by lowering body temperatures. This hypothermia may be responsible for both the increased conservation of body mass seen during starvation and the slightly greater (5%) fat stores observed in female mice.

Bilateral adrenalectomy (ADX) of 4-month-old ob/ob mice led to reduced rates of body weight gain, a complete cessation of fat deposition and increased percentage carcass protein and ash during a 2-month observation period after surgery. However, ADX obese mice were still heavier and had more body fat and lower concentrations of carcass protein and ash than intact sex-matched littermate lean mice at the end of the experiment. When adrenalectomy was performed in younger obese mice before the syndrome was fully expressed (23 +/- 2 days of age), body weight gain was reduced by 40 per cent and fat deposition by 50 per cent during the next 3.5 months, but each was still greater than that of littermate lean mice. Despite the lower rate of weight gain after adrenalectomy, the skeletal and lean body growth of the early ADX obese mice equalled that of both obese and lean mice fed ad libitum. When the carcass composition of early ADX obese mice was compared with that of intact obese mice which were calorically restricted to the same rate of body weight gain, the ADX group had significantly less carcass fat (28 per cent) and more protein (50 per cent) and ash (20 per cent) than the dieted obese mice. In both experiments adrenalectomy led to reduced circulating immunoreactive insulin levels, although hyperinsulinemia persisted. The present results show that adrenalectomy is an effective tool for ameliorating the severity of many aspects of the ob/ob syndrome, particularly when compared with caloric restriction, but the procedure does not entirely reverse the deranged metabolism or abnormal carcass composition of these mice.