Tibial intramedullary nails -- should they be removed? A retrospective study of 71 patients.

Background: Anterior knee pain and young age of the patient have been considered justification for removal of a tibial intramedullary nail. There have been few reports on the outcome after nail removal, however.

Patients And Methods: We studied 71 patients in whom 72 tibial nails had been removed.

Ankle arthrodesis using dowel bone graft and cancellous-bone screws: a mechanical study in cadavers.

Background: There are numerous techniques for ankle arthrodesis.

Material And Methods: We studied the stability of an ankle arthrodesis with the use of two cross-screws combined with dowel graft technique in 14 fresh-frozen ankles from amputees. The arthrodesis was performed by a dowel graft technique, in the coronal plane in 7 specimens (group 1) and in the diagonal plane in the remaining 7 (group 2).

Experimental disc degeneration due to endplate injury.

The aim of this study was to create an experimental model of disc degeneration that closely mimicked human disc degeneration. In six domestic pigs, an L4 cranial endplate perforation into the nucleus pulposus was made. Three months postoperatively, compressive testing was performed on the L2-L4 motion segments, and intradiscal pressure was measured in the intervening discs.