Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) appears to be an effective alternative to surgical aortic valve replacement (AVR) for the treatment of aortic stenosis in very elderly patients, including those age 85 years and older
Over the past two years, an expert in revision hip and knee replacement surgery has seen an increase in the number of people needing a second surgery. When a knee or hip implant wears out or another problem develops, people often need a second surgery in which the existing implant or components are taken out and replaced.
For the estimated 10 percent of patients whose bodies reject a corneal transplant, the odds of a second transplant succeeding are poor. All that could change, however, based on a UT Southwestern Medical Center study that has found a way to boost the corneal transplant acceptance rate.
For patients with herniated discs in the lower (lumbar) spine, surgery leads to greater long-term improvement in pain, functioning, and disability compared to nonsurgical treatment, concludes an eight year follow-up study in Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
Incorporating a blood conservation strategy (BCS) during aortic valve replacement (AVR) can reduce the likelihood of transfusion-related complications, as well as reduce blood-product utilization
The elimination of extensive routine preoperative tests and consultations represents an area of potentially large health care savings across many disciplines, particularly for low-risk patients being evaluated for cataract surgery. Lee A. Fleisher, MD, chair of the department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, authored a commentary alongside a study from a team from the University of Washington, Seattle, showing that, despite this evidence showing no benefit for patients, the incidence of preoperative tests is actually increasing for Medicare patients undergoing cataract surgery. The piece is published online today in the new issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.
Preoperative consultations before cataract surgery became more common for Medicare patients despite no clear guidelines about when to require such a service, hinting at unnecessary use of health care resources, according to a study published by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.
A new study shows that coronary artery calcium (CAC) screening, an assessment tool that is not currently recommended for people considered at low risk, should play a more prominent role in helping determine a person’s risk for heart attack and heart disease-related death, as well as the need for angioplasty or bypass surgery. CAC screening provides a direct measure of calcium deposits in heart arteries and is easily obtained on a computed tomography (CT) scan.
The interventional cardiology team led by Ehtisham Mahmud, MD, FACC, at UC San Diego Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center (SCVC) has successfully completed the first two robotically-assisted coronary angioplasty/stent procedures in California.
In a study of national data on colon surgery, Johns Hopkins researchers found that while patients who undergo either minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery or the high-tech robotic approach have similar outcomes, robotic surgery is significantly more expensive.
Patients receiving the widely used anesthesia drug etomidate for surgery may be at increased risk or mortality and cardiovascular events, according to a study in the December issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).
Children had long been prescribed codeine for pain relief after having surgery to remove their tonsils -- until the FDA banned use of the drug in February. Now a new study finds that acupuncture can be a safe and effective alternative.
Johns Hopkins surgeons say skipping one commonly taken step during a routine procedure to insert a wire mesh stent into a partially blocked carotid artery appears to prevent patients from developing dangerously low blood pressure, an extremely slow heart rate or even a stroke or heart attack.
Strangers often stop to ask Bob Seeman why he wears a padded glove on his left hand. So he hands out a card with a link to a YouTube video, which tells the extraordinary story of how Seeman’s left arm was reattached after it was nearly completely severed in a tow truck accident.
Washington, DC, December 8 - Resective surgery is seldom used in epilepsy patients aged 60 and older despite its potential to offer seizure freedom. Older age may deter referrals to specialized epilepsy centers given concern of increased surgical risk due to age and presence of other health problems common in the elderly.
Resective surgery is an effective treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy. To investigate the effect of epilepsy surgery on patients lives, researchers from the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit conducted a long-term retrospective follow up of surgical patients and correlated post-surgical psychosocial outcomes with seizure outcome and brain area surgically treated.
Patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) who were as old as 74 fared as well with stem cell transplantation as did patients in the 60-to-65 age range, according to a study from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.
Patients with epilepsy often undergo evaluation by concurrent video and EEG monitoring (vEEG) for therapeutic planning, including possible epilepsy surgery. Seizures during monitoring increase the diagnostic yield and requires the withdrawal of anticonvulsant drugs (AEDs) to allow seizures to occur. A frequently asked question in clinical practice concerns the safety and long-term effect of AED withdrawal or discontinuation in this diagnostic procedure.
Surgery for drug–resistant epilepsy is performed with the dual aim of obtaining seizure freedom and potential for reducing or discontinuing anticonvulsant drugs (AEDs). Most epilepsy patients become seizure free with surgery. But there are no criteria for the timing of AED withdrawal following the procedure, and the long-term effect of post-operative AED withdrawal is unclear.
Epilepsy surgery is a very effective intervention for patients with treatment resistant epilepsy. The most successful and most common epilepsy surgery is temporal lobectomy, which produces seizure freedom in approximately two-thirds of patients. The strongest candidates for this type of surgery are those who have had treatment resistant epilepsy which includes 30-40 percent of all epilepsy cases. Even with this clear benefit, epilepsy specialists today reported at the Presidential Symposia during the American Epilepsy Society Annual Meeting, that the overall number of surgeries in adults, as well as the number of temporal lobectomies, has decreased from their peaks.
For patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) who are not experiencing a heart attack and an abnormal stress test, treatment of their narrowed arteries by the common procedure of angioplasty may not provide additional benefits compared to drug therapy alone. This finding results from a survey of more than 4,000 patients with myocardial ischemia, or inadequate circulation, led by cardiologists at Stony Brook University School of Medicine. The survey results are published in the online first edition of JAMA Internal Medicine.
Once viewed as an "outlandish morally objectionable" concept with science-fiction overtones, face transplantation is now accepted as a "feasible and necessary treatment" for severely disfigured patients. The evolving ethical debate over face transplantation is analyzed in a special topic paper in the December issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
Current laser therapy approaches are effective for treating excessive scars resulting from abnormal wound healing, concludes a special topic paper in the December issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
Nearly half of orthopaedic surgeons sustain at least one injury during their career and, in many cases, the resources available to them are inadequate, according to a Vanderbilt study in The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The study is the first to demonstrate that many surgeons are injured on the job during their careers, according to lead author Manish Sethi, M.D., assistant professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation.
A neuroradiologist inserts a micro-catheter into an aneurysm and injects a fluorescent dye, a complex, rare and new procedure which provides a neurosurgeon a clear view of the blood vessel that feeds the aneurysm. The surgeon then knows where to sew in a transplanted blood vessel to bypass the aneurysm.
AATS and three cardiovascular professional societies today released an overview of transcatheter therapies for mitral regurgitation. Intended to “help frame subsequent discussions” among the field’s various stakeholders, the document highlights critical issues that should be considered as the technologies are integrated into clinical practice.
Knee surgery for the type of meniscus tear suffered by Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose can involve a difficult tradeoff. Surgery that enables a quick return could result in painful arthritis later in life.
Neurosurgeons at UC San Diego Health System are using a new approach to visualize the brain’s delicate anatomy prior to surgery. The novel technique allows neurosurgeons to see the brain’s nerve connections thus preserving and protecting critical functions such as vision, speech and memory. No needles, dyes or chemicals are needed to create the radiology scan. The main imaging ingredient? Water.
Surgery to repair torn rotator cuffs improves patients’ quality of life and can allow them to get back to work quickly, resulting in societal savings for patients 61 years and younger, according to a new analysis led by Duke Medicine.
Among patients receiving standard care, 47% suffered a major complication of death, heart attack, stroke, pneumonia, blood clot or major bleeding event. However, only 30% of the patients in the accelerated surgery group suffered one of these complications.
Researchers report for the first time evidence on whether or not there is any significant difference between the two current surgical approaches to treat patients with severe ischemic mitral regurgitation -- mitral valve repair and mitral valve replacement.
Researchers show end-stage heart failure patients who receive a surgically implanted left ventricular assist device (LVAD) heart pump may also benefit from a single dose of millions of powerful cells injected directly into their heart during surgery.
After cardiac surgery, healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are common complications associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and use of resources. New study findings reveal the substantial economic impact of HAIs following cardiac surgery and the importance of preventing these infections leading to re-hospitalizations.
The bariatric program at Stanford University saw hospital readmission rates drop by 75 percent and surgical-site infections decline by 60 percent after changes in patient education, discharge planning and pre-operative procedures, according to a new study* presented here at the 30th Annual Meeting for the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) during ObesityWeek 2013.
University of North Carolina (UNC) researchers found patients who were denied or delayed insurance approval for bariatric surgery, despite being cleared by their medical team, had a mortality rate three times higher than patients who received insurance approval without delay.
Researchers found the biggest determinant of weight loss after bariatric surgery was not how long a patient was on a medically supervised diet program before surgery, but whether or not the patient had private or government-subsidized insurance.
Bariatric surgery is significantly safer when performed at an accredited center, according to new research* presented here at the 30th Annual Meeting for the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) during ObesityWeek 2013.
New research from the Cleveland Clinic shows most patients with diabetes and obesity who undergo gastric bypass not only experience remission of their diabetes and lose significant weight, but they also reduce their risk of having a heart attack by 40 percent and their risk for suffering a stroke by 42 percent, over a 10-year time horizon.
A University of Alabama at Birmingham surgical team has performed the first surgery using a virtual augmented reality technology called VIPAAR in conjunction with Google Glass, a wearable computer with an optical head-mounted display. The combination of the two technologies could be an important step toward the development of useful, practical telemedicine.
• In 74 obese kidney disease patients undergoing weight loss surgery, there were 16 adverse events, including two deaths related to surgical complications.
Use of a minimally invasive endoscopic procedure to remove superficial, early stage esophageal cancer is as effective as surgery that takes out and rebuilds the esophagus, according to a study by researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
Initial results of a first and largest of its kind study focusing on the safety of adolescent bariatric surgery were published this week in JAMA Pediatrics. The “Teen Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery” (Teen-LABS) study is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is being conducted at five sites in the U.S., including Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Researchers are reporting positive results from a landmark clinical trial of an investigational aortic valve that is deployed with a catheter, without open heart surgery.
In the largest in-depth scientific study of its kind on the safety of teen weight-loss surgery, researchers report few short-term complications for adolescents with severe obesity undergoing bariatric surgery.
The first study to look extensively at sexual function in women who underwent bariatric surgery found that significant improvements in overall sexual function, most reproductive hormones and in psychological status were maintained over two years following surgery. Women reporting the poorest quality of sexual function prior to surgery saw the most dramatic improvements one year after surgery, on par with women who reported the highest quality of sexual function prior to surgery.
More than two decades ago, Ryan Vincent had open brain surgery to remove a malignant brain tumor, resulting in a lengthy hospital stay and weeks of recovery at home. Recently, neurosurgeons at Houston Methodist Hospital removed a different lesion from Vincent’s brain through a tube inserted into a hole smaller than a dime and he went home the next day.
A study of over 750 kidney transplant patients over a five-year period has found that 90 percent of early rehospitalizations (within 30 days of surgery) were caused by complex medical factors related to the transplantation process. Only nine percent of rehospitalizations – which occurred among only three percent of the entire group of patients – were categorized as potentially preventable.
High risk patients have better outcomes when undergoing aortic valve replacement (AVR) at hospitals that perform high volumes of the procedure
A discovery from Case Western Reserve and Cleveland Clinic researchers could provide epilepsy patients invaluable advance guidance about their chances to improve symptoms through surgery.
Would you consider traveling to Mexico or India for a less-expensive rhinoplasty or breast augmentation procedure? Many Americans are doing just that—and the trend is having an impact on the market for cosmetic plastic surgery, according to an article in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery—Global Open®, the official open-access medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right