Do theatre staff use face masks in accordance with the manufacturers' guidelines of use?

Aim: Surgical face masks are worn by theatre staff to protect the surgical site from airborne contamination and the wearer from bodily fluid splash. This observational/audit aimed to assess whether theatre staff wear masks in accordance with manufacturers'/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines of use.

Methods: A total of 1034 surgically scrubbed staff were assessed on their technique of applying surgical face masks, compared to the CDC guidelines as manufacturers' guidelines were not available as per Health and Safety Executive guidelines.

Extended operating times are more efficient, save money and maintain a high staff and patient satisfaction.

Current public sector austerity measures necessitate efficiency savings throughout the NHS. Performance targets have resulted in activity being performed in the private sector, waiting list initiative lists and requests for staff to work overtime. This has resulted in staff fatigue and additional agency costs.

Automated motion estimation for 2-D cine DENSE MRI.

Cine displacement encoding with stimulated echoes (DENSE) is a magnetic resonance (MR) method that directly encodes tissue displacement into MR phase images. This technique has successfully interrogated many forms of tissue motion, but is most commonly used to evaluate cardiac mechanics. Currently, motion analysis from cine DENSE images requires manually delineated anatomical structures.

An international multicenter randomized controlled trial of G17DT in patients with pancreatic cancer.

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate G17DT, an immunogen producing neutralizing antibodies against the tumor growth factors amidated and glycine-extended forms of gastrin-17, in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Methods: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, group-sequential multicenter trial of G17DT in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer unsuitable for or unwilling to take chemotherapy. Inclusion criteria were a Karnofsky performance score of 60 or higher and a life expectancy of more than 2 months.

Comprehensive cardiovascular magnetic resonance of myocardial mechanics in mice using three-dimensional cine DENSE.

Background: Quantitative noninvasive imaging of myocardial mechanics in mice enables studies of the roles of individual genes in cardiac function. We sought to develop comprehensive three-dimensional methods for imaging myocardial mechanics in mice.

Methods: A 3D cine DENSE pulse sequence was implemented on a 7T small-bore scanner.

Cardiac motion recovery via active trajectory field models.

Cardiovascular researchers are constantly developing new and innovative medical imaging technologies, striving to improve the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of cardiovascular dysfunction. Combining these sophisticated imaging methods with advancements in image understanding via computational intelligence will continue to advance the frontier of cardiovascular medicine. Recently, researchers have turned to a new class of tissue motion imaging techniques, including displacement encoding with stimulated echoes (DENSE) in cardiac magnetic resonance (cMR) imaging, to directly quantify cardiac displacement and produce accurate spatiotemporal measurements of myocardial strain, twist, and torsion.

Injuries caused by parachute risers during foreign military parachuting.

Objective: The objective was to study the injuries from the deployment of military parachutes when parachuting with foreign armies.

Methods: The number and nature of injuries sustained while military parachuting with domestic and foreign parachute systems and techniques was compared.

Results: Of a total of 370 parachutists, 41 (11.

A prospective, randomized controlled trial comparing n-butyl cyanoacrylate tissue adhesive (LiquiBand) with sutures for skin closure after laparoscopic general surgical procedures.

The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of n-butyl-cyanoacrylate tissue adhesive (Liquiband) with nonabsorbable monofilament sutures for laparoscopic port site closure. Adult patients having elective laparoscopic procedures were randomly allocated to wound closure with sutures or tissue adhesive. End points included skin closure time, wound dressing requirements, wound complications, and cosmesis, assessed at discharge, 4 to 6 weeks and 3 months.

The biological and therapeutic importance of gastrin gene expression in pancreatic adenocarcinomas.

The gastrin gene is expressed widely in pancreatic adenocarcinomas and the study aimed to assess its role in both the resistance of cancer cells to apoptosis and the sensitivity of cells to chemotherapeutic agents. Two human pancreatic cell lines, PAN1 and BXPC3, expressed gastrin at both the RNA and protein levels and are shown to be representative of human pancreatic adenocarcinomas in terms of gastrin expression. Inhibition of endogenous gastrin production by tumor cells was achieved with neutralizing gastrin antiserum and transfection with a gastrin antisense plasmid.

Emerging biological therapies for pancreatic carcinoma.

Aims: The incidence of pancreatic carcinoma remains approximately equal to its mortality, with the vast majority of patients having advanced disease at presentation. This review is an update of the promising novel approaches involving biological therapy that may be used in conjunction with new chemotherapeutic agents in the near future.

Methods: A literature review was performed using the National Library of Medicine's Pubmed database, combined with recently published data from the AGA and ASCO conferences.