Identification of the medial femoral safe zone for drilling during dynamic hip screw side plate fixation: A CT angiogram tracing of the profunda femoris artery

Objectives

Iatrogenic injury of the Profunda Femoris Artery (PFA) at time of hip fixation surgery can increase morbidity and mortality and prolong the hospital stay. This is an injury that tends to pass unnoticed as a cause of postoperative deterioration despite being frequently reported in the literature. Our study aims to describe the anatomy of the PFA in relation to the medial femoral cortex with specific emphasis on its orientation relative to the position of a sliding hip screw side plate construct. By doing so we are able to present clear guidance to orthopaedic surgeons on how to avoid iatrogenic PFA injury at the time of hip fracture fixation.

Trans-Pacific tele-ultrasound image transmission of fetal central nervous system structures

Objective: To assess the quality of images and video clips of fetal central nervous (CNS) structures obtained by ultrasound and transmitted via tele-ultrasound from Brazil to Australia.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 15 normal singleton pregnant women between 20 and 26 weeks were selected. Fetal CNS structures were obtained by images and video clips. The exams were transmitted in real-time using a broadband internet and an inexpensive video streaming device. Four blinded examiners evaluated the quality of the exams using the Likert scale. We calculated the mean, standard deviation, mean difference, and p values were obtained from paired t tests.

Results: The quality of the original video clips was slightly better than that observed by the transmitted video clips; mean difference considering all observers = 0.23 points. In 47/60 comparisons (78.3%; 95% CI?=?66.4–86.9%) the quality of the video clips were judged to be the same. In 182/240 still images (75.8%; 95% CI?=?70.0–80.8%) the scores of transmitted image were considered the same as the original.

Conclusion: We demonstrated that long distance tele-ultrasound transmission of fetal CNS structures using an inexpensive video streaming device provided images of subjective good quality.     

Neurotherapeutic potential of erythropoietin after ischemic injury of the central nervous system

Erythropoietin(EPO) is one of the most successful biopharmaceuticals in history and is used for treating anemia of different origins. However, it became clear that EPO could also work in a neuroprotective, antiapoptotic, antioxidative, angiogenetic and neurotropic way. It causes stimulation of cells to delay cell apoptosis, especially in the central nervous system. In rodent models of focal cerebral ischemia, EPO showed an impressive reduction of infarct size by 30% and improvement of neurobehavioral outcome by nearly 40%. A large animal model dealing with ischemia and reperfusion of the spinal cord showed that EPO could reduce the risk of spinal cord injury significantly. In addition, some clinical studies tested whether EPO works in real live clinical settings. One of the most promising studies showed the innocuousness and improvements in follow-up, outcome scales and in infarct size, of EPO-use in humans suffering from ischemic stroke. Another study ended unfortunately in a negative outcome and an increased overall death rate in the EPO group. The most possible reason was the involvement of patients undergoing simultaneously systemic thrombolysis with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator. An experimental study on rats demonstrated that administration of EPO might exacerbate tissue plasminogen activator-induced brain hemorrhage without reducing the ischemic brain damage. This case shows clearly how useful animal models can be to check negative side effects of a treatment before going into clinical trials. Other groups looked in human trials at the effects of EPO on the outcome after ischemic stroke, relation to circulating endothelial progenitor cells, aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, traumatic brain injury, hemoglobin transfusion thresholds and elective first-time coronary artery bypass surgery. Most of the results were positive, but are based mostly on small group sizes. However, some of the most neglected facts when focusing on experimental setups of ischemia of the central nervous system are issues like age and comorbidities. It might be extremely worthy to consider these points for future projects, because EPO might influence all these factors.     

Age-related variations in gene expression patterns of renal cell carcinoma

Background

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is known to occur across the adult lifetime traversing the spectrum of age-related organismal changes. Little is known as to how the aging process may affect the course of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and the repertoire of genes involved.