Comparison of baseline characteristics and postoperative complications in neuromuscular, syndromic and congenital scoliosis.

Nonidiopathic scoliosis encompasses a group of diagnoses, including neuromuscular scoliosis, syndromic scoliosis and congenital scoliosis. The objective of this study was to compare the preoperative and postoperative clinical differences in pediatric nonidiopathic scoliosis patients with neuromuscular scoliosis vs. syndromic scoliosis/congenital scoliosis.

Hamate Body Fractures: a Comprehensive Review of the Literature.

Purpose Of Review: Due to the rarity and often discrete nature of hamate body fractures, timely diagnosis requires a high level of suspicion on the part of the clinician. Here, the authors have compiled the findings from 6 cohort studies and 33 case reports describing hamate body fractures in order to summarize the natural history, management, and outcomes of these infrequent injuries.

Recent Findings: Fractures of the hamate body typically occur in the coronal plane through axial loading of the metacarpals or loading in the transverse plane by a compressive force.

The role of Notch signaling in the mammalian ovary.

The Notch pathway is a contact-dependent, or juxtacrine, signaling system that is conserved in metazoan organisms and is important in many developmental processes. Recent investigations have demonstrated that the Notch pathway is active in both the embryonic and postnatal ovary and plays important roles in events including follicle assembly and growth, meiotic maturation, ovarian vasculogenesis and steroid hormone production. In mice, disruption of the Notch pathway results in ovarian pathologies affecting meiotic spindle assembly, follicle histogenesis, granulosa cell proliferation and survival, corpora luteal function and ovarian neovascularization.

Notch signaling regulates ovarian follicle formation and coordinates follicular growth.

Ovarian follicles form through a process in which somatic pregranulosa cells encapsulate individual germ cells from germ cell syncytia. Complementary expression of the Notch ligand, Jagged1, in germ cells and the Notch receptor, Notch2, in pregranulosa cells suggests a role for Notch signaling in mediating cellular interactions during follicle assembly. Using a Notch reporter mouse, we demonstrate that Notch signaling is active within somatic cells of the embryonic ovary, and these cells undergo dramatic reorganization during follicle histogenesis.