NCBI ROFL: “Playboy Rabbit” sign: What's your diagnosis?

Discoblog
By ncbi rofl
Jul 13, 2011 4:00 AMNov 20, 2019 1:44 AM

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It’s CMAJ week on NCBI ROFL! All this week we’ll be featuring articles from the Canadian Medical Association Journal’s holiday issues. Enjoy! The Case: A 35-year-old, otherwise healthy woman arrived with complaints of shortness of breath and abdominal pain. Results of a physical examination, electro- and echocardiography, and chest radiography were all normal. An ultrasound scan of the liver was done (Fig. 1). What is your diagnosis? The Diagnosis: The ultrasound scan showed a rabbit-shaped image caused by the confluence of the middle and right hepatic veins. The strongly suggestive image, also known as Mumoli's sign (named after the senior author), shows the hepatic veins joining together into the inferior vena cava. It is highly reproducible with a transverse subcostal view in deep inspiration during ultrasound scanning of the normal liver. We were unable to find any previous report describing a rabbit-like sign. The patient was given assurance that she had no physical abnormality and was discharged with a diagnosis of anxiety. Indeed, the woman returned immediately to her work as a waitress in a nightclub."

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