“Lytic” lesions in autologous bone grafts: demonstration of medullary air pockets on post mortem computed tomography

Donor bone grafts are an important aspect of orthopaedic surgery. The use of plain film as a pathological screening tool before donor bone dispatch has revealed “lytic” lesions in proximal humeri. Donor demographics did not support the diagnosis of myeloma and subsequent computed tomography (CT) scans of these bones identified the lesions as air, not pathology. In total, 27 long bones were scanned and 100% (27/27 cases) exhibited air within the trabecular bone. Three distinct patterns were found: ovoid, linear/branching, and broad channel. A longitudinal course of CT scans was performed to identify at which stage air appeared within the bone. Pre-retrieval, preprocessing, and postprocessing scans revealed that air originated between the retrieval and preprocessing stages of donor bone preparation. There may be multiple aetiology of this phenomenon, including bone retrieval and natural decomposition.     

应用带骨间掌侧动脉背侧支血管蒂桡骨瓣治疗腕舟骨骨折不愈合

目的　探讨一种良好的治疗腕舟骨骨折不愈合的方法 ,丰富治疗腕舟骨骨折不愈合的手术方式。方法　切除腕舟骨骨折不愈合之硬化骨 ,以克氏针贯穿固定骨折端 ,用带骨间掌侧动脉背侧支血管蒂桡骨瓣翻转移植治疗腕舟骨骨折不愈合 15例。结果　术后随访 3～ 6个月 ,骨折完全愈合 ;9～ 18个月 ,腕关节活动正常无痛。结论　前臂间掌侧动脉背侧支解剖位置恒定 ,变异少 ,位置较表浅 ,血管蒂长、口径粗、游离安全容易 ,血供充分 ,能有效地促进舟骨骨折愈合。     

重组骨形态发生蛋白-2结合软骨下钻孔治疗犬关节软骨全层缺损的实验研究

目的 研究重组骨形态发生蛋白-2(rhBMP-2)结合软骨下骨钻孔治疗犬关节软骨全层缺损的可行性，为临床应用提供实验依据。方法 依照软骨缺损处理方法的不同将64侧股骨髁随机均分为4组：①结合组：软骨下骨钻孔 胶原海绵吸附rhBMP-2充填软骨缺损；②BMP组：胶原海绵吸附rhBMP-2充填软骨缺损；③钻孔组：单纯软骨下骨钻孔；④对照组：不作处理或单纯用胶原海绵填塞。术后2、4、8、12周取材观察其大体、光镜、透射电镜、免疫组织化学情况。结果 除对照组仅有纤维组织修复外，其余3组均有不同程度的软骨修复，但结合组的修复在组织细胞形态、超微结构、Ⅱ型胶原含量等方面均明显优于其他两组。结论rhBMP-2结合软骨下骨钻孔能有效修复犬膝关节软骨的全层缺损，该技术可行，有望在临床应用。     

Plasma pharmacokinetics of high-dose oral busulfan in children and adults undergoing bone marrow transplantation

Abstract: We have analyzed the plasma pharmacokinetics of busulfan in 272 patients receiving high-dose oral busulfan and intravenous cyclophosphamide in conjunction with allogeneic or autologous bone marrow transplantation. The patients ranged in age from 2 months to 59 yr (mean 10, median 12 yr) and had the following diagnoses: thalassemia or sickle cell anemia (n = 74); leukemia or myelodysplasia (n = 112); inborn errors of metabolism (n = 41) or immunodeficiency (n = 45). Plasma specimens were collected following the first dose for each patient which ranged from 1 to 4 mg/kg (mean ± SD, 1.21 ± 0.41, median 1.15). Busulfan was quantitated using ultraviolet absorbance detection after derivatization and HPLC separation. Pharmacokinetic parameters were derived by modeling the raw data to fit first-order single compartment kinetics. The kinetic parameters showed wide interpatient variability independent of age and diagnosis. There was a statistically significant correlation of age with the following parameters: area under the curve (AUC); maximal concentration; minimum concentration; clearance; volume of distribution and absorption half-time. The coefficients of determination (i.e. correlation coefficient squared) were low ranging from 0.04 to 0.12 implying only a small part (i.e. 4–12%) of the variance was explained by age. Although busulfan pharmacokinetics are age-related most of the variability is not explained by age or diagnosis.     

Distal radial fractures Injectable calcium phosphate bone cement versus conventional treatment

AMEDLINEsearchwasconductedtoidentifystudiespublishedfromJanuary1999toMarch2004thatcom-paredinjectablecalciumphosphatebone(NorianSRS)cementwithconventionaltreatmentindistalradialfrac-tures.Fromalistof13articlesidentifiedfromthesearchstrategy,fourarticleswe…     

A Tissue-Engineered Artificial Bile Duct Grown to Resemble The Native Bile Duct

The aim of this study was to fabricate an artificial bile duct for the development of a new treatment for biliary diseases. Eighteen hybrid pigs were implanted with a bile duct organoid unit (BDOU) made of a bioabsorbable polymer. Twelve of the transplanted BDOUs had been seeded with autologous bone marrow cells (BMCs) in advance. Six animals, the controls, were grafted with the scaffold alone with no BMCs seeded. The common bile duct was cut, the hepatic cut end of the native common bile duct was anastomosed to the BDOU and the other end was anastomosed to the duodenum. The controls underwent a similar operation. The neo-bile duct was removed at pre-determined time points and investigated histologically. All 18 recipient pigs survived until their sacrifice at 6 weeks, 10 weeks or 6 months. Histological examination revealed incomplete epithelialization of the neo-bile duct at 6 weeks and 10 weeks after transplantation. At 6 months, the organoid exhibited a morphology almost identical to that of the native common bile duct. No differences were found between the controls and BMC-seeded pigs. These results show that the artificial bile duct thus fabricated can serve as a substitute for the native bile duct.     

Effects of gastric bypass procedures on bone mineral density,calcium, parathyroid hormone,and vitamin d

Weight loss after gastric bypass procedures has been well studied, but the long-term metabolic sequelae are not known. Data on bone mineral density (BMD), calcium, parathyroid hormone, and vitamin D were collected preoperatively and at yearly intervals after gastric bypass procedures. A total of 230 patients underwent preoperative BMD scans. Fifteen patients were osteopenic preoperatively, and three patients subsequently developed osteopenia postoperatively within the first year. No patient had or developed osteoporosis. At 1 year, total forearm BMD decreased by 0.55% (n = 91; P = .03) and radius BMD had increased overall by 1.85% (n = 23; P = .008); both total hip and lumbar spine BMD decreased by 9.27% (n = 22; P < .001) and 4.53% (n = 31; P < .001), respectively. By the second postoperative year, BMD in the total forearm had decreased an additional 3.62% (n = 14; P<.001), whereas radius BMD remained unchanged. Although total hip and lumbar spine BMD significantly decreased at 1 year, by year 2 both total hip and lumbar spine BMD only slightly decreased and were not significantly different from before the operation. Serum calcium decreased from 9.8 mg/dL to 9.2 during the first year (not significant [NS]) and then to 8.8 (NS) by the second year. Parathyroid hormone increased from 59.7 pg/mL (nl 10-65 pg/mL) preoperatively to 63.1 during year 1 (NS) and continued to increase to 64.7 by year 2 (NS). No difference was noted among levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D preoperatively (25.2 ng/mL; nl 10-65 ng/mL), at 1 year (34.4), and at 2 years (35.4). Our data indicate that bone loss is highest in the first year after gastric bypass with stabilization, and that, in some cases, there is an increase in bone density after the first year. Presented at the Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting of The Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, Chicago, Illinois, May 14–18, 2005 (oral presentation).     

RF refocused echoes of J-coupled spin systems: effects on RARE-based spectroscopic imaging.

A numerical simulation tool was developed to calculate the echo amplitudes of J-coupled resonances within a series of radiofrequency (RF) refocused echoes. The signal modulation due to J-coupling in rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement (RARE) is suppressed only when the inverse of the pulse interval (tau) is large compared to both the chemical shift (CS) difference (Deltadelta) of the coupled spins and the coupling constant. In contrast, the echo amplitudes in ultrafast low-flip-angle RARE (U-FLARE) oscillate around a quasi-steady-state value that is greater than zero (neglecting relaxation and diffusion) even when Deltadelta > 1/tau. The flip-angle distribution over the measured slice caused by the use of Gaussian-shape slice-selective refocusing pulses further reduces the echo oscillations. When the pulse interval falls short of the fast pulse rate regime, spectroscopic U-FLARE provides an improved spatial impulse response in the phase-encoding (PE) direction compared to spectroscopic RARE.     

Parallel imaging reconstruction for arbitrary trajectories using k-space sparse matrices (kSPA).

Although the concept of receiving MR signal using multiple coils simultaneously has been known for over two decades, the technique has only recently become clinically available as a result of the development of several effective parallel imaging reconstruction algorithms. Despite the success of these algorithms, it remains a challenge in many applications to rapidly and reliably reconstruct an image from partially-acquired general non-Cartesian k-space data. Such applications include, for example, three-dimensional (3D) imaging, functional MRI (fMRI), perfusion-weighted imaging, and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), in which a large number of images have to be reconstructed. In this work, a systematic k-space-based reconstruction algorithm based on k-space sparse matrices (kSPA) is introduced. This algorithm formulates the image reconstruction problem as a system of sparse linear equations in k-space. The inversion of this system of equations is achieved by computing a sparse approximate inverse matrix. The algorithm is demonstrated using both simulated and in vivo data, and the resulting image quality is comparable to that of the iterative sensitivity encoding (SENSE) algorithm. The kSPA algorithm is noniterative and the computed sparse approximate inverse can be applied repetitively to reconstruct all subsequent images. This algorithm, therefore, is particularly suitable for the aforementioned applications.