Thoracolumbar spinal tuberculosis in children with severe post-tubercular kyphotic deformities treated by single-stage closing–opening wedge osteotomy: preliminary report a 4-year follow-up of 12 patients

Purpose

The correction of severe post-tubercular kyphosis (PTK) is complex and has the disadvantage of being multistaged with a high morbidity. In this study, we evaluated the outcomes of children who underwent single-stage closing–opening wedge osteotomy as a surgical treatment of PTK of the thoracolumbar spine.

Method

Our study group included 12 children with thoracolumbar PTK (seven boys and five girls) with an average age of 9.4 years (range 6–12 years), who were treated at our institution from January 2004 to October 2009. The American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale and visual analog scale score were used to classify neurologic function. All patients underwent halo-pelvic traction before surgery and were treated with single-stage closing–opening wedge osteotomy.

Result

The duration of surgery averaged 99 min (range 70–150 min). Average blood loss was 782 ml (range 560–1,200 ml), and the average length of hospital stay was 12 days (range 8–16 days). The neurological function of all patients improved significantly after the procedure. The mean preoperative kyphotic angle was 83.3° (range 59–118°), which had reduced to 27.6° (range 20–38°) at the final follow-up visit. All patients had solid fusion, and no major complications were observed through the final follow-up visit.

Conclusion

Single-stage closing–opening wedge osteotomy is an effective method to correct severe thoracolumbar PTK. A main advantage of the procedure is that it is a posterior-only, single-staged surgery, allowing for significant correction with minimal complications.     

Decoding the individual finger movements from single‐trial functional magnetic resonance imaging recordings of human brain activity

Multivariate pattern classification analysis (MVPA) has been applied to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to decode brain states from spatially distributed activation patterns. Decoding upper limb movements from non‐invasively recorded human brain activation is crucial for implementing a brain–machine interface that directly harnesses an individual's thoughts to control external devices or computers. The aim of this study was to decode the individual finger movements from fMRI single‐trial data. Thirteen healthy human subjects participated in a visually cued delayed finger movement task, and only one slight button press was performed in each trial. Using MVPA, the decoding accuracy (DA) was computed separately for the different motor‐related regions of interest. For the construction of feature vectors, the feature vectors from two successive volumes in the image series for a trial were concatenated. With these spatial–temporal feature vectors, we obtained a 63.1% average DA (84.7% for the best subject) for the contralateral primary somatosensory cortex and a 46.0% average DA (71.0% for the best subject) for the contralateral primary motor cortex; both of these values were significantly above the chance level (20%). In addition, we implemented searchlight MVPA to search for informative regions in an unbiased manner across the whole brain. Furthermore, by applying searchlight MVPA to each volume of a trial, we visually demonstrated the information for decoding, both spatially and temporally. The results suggest that the non‐invasive fMRI technique may provide informative features for decoding individual finger movements and the potential of developing an fMRI‐based brain–machine interface for finger movement.     

Hashimoto’s encephalopathy mimicking presenile dementia

Hashimoto’s encephalopathy (HE), which carries kaleidoscopic clinical presentations, is easily misdiagnosed in clinical practice. Early diagnosis and prompt initiation of steroid therapy are associated with good prognosis. We describe a 50-year-old female patient who had subclinical hypothyroidism and who presented herself with gradual cognitive impairment, accompanied with auditory hallucination and delusion. Increased anti-thyroid antibodies titers were found in her serum and cerebrospinal fluid. The HE diagnosis was confirmed using the laboratory test for anti-thyroid antibodies along with the patient’s clinical presentation. We treated her with steroid pulse therapy, and the results were favorable. We highlight this case to call for early diagnosis and prompt intervention of HE in clinical practice.     

颈部三角吻合术在微创食管切除术中的应用

目的：评价三角吻合术在微创食管切除、食管胃颈部吻合术中应用的安全性和有效性。方法回顾性分析2013年1月至2014年3月在复旦大学附属中山医院胸外科接受胸腹腔镜食管癌根治切除加食管胃颈部吻合术的137例患者的临床资料,其中三角吻合77例（三角吻合组）,管状吻合60例（管状吻合组）。结果三角吻合组和管状吻合组术中吻合时间分别为（18．0±3．9） min 和（17．0±2．9） min,差异无统计学意义（P＝0．099）;术后吻合口瘘发生率分别为3．9％（3/77）和10．0％（6/60）,差异无统计学差异（P＝0．152）;吻合口狭窄发生率分别为1．3％（1/77）和15．0％（9/60）,差异有统计学意义（P＝0．002）。两组患者在围手术期死亡率、心血管并发症、肺部并发症等方面的差异均无统计学意义（P＞0．05）。结论颈部三角吻合术是一种安全、有效的吻合方法,可以降低术后吻合口狭窄的发生。