Introduction: High-grade pancreaticoduodenal injuries are highly morbid and may require complex surgical management. Pancreaticoduodenectomy (Whipple procedure) is sometimes utilized in the management of these injuries, but guidelines on its use are lacking. This paper aims to present our 14-year experience in management of high-grade pancreaticoduodenal injuries at our busy, urban trauma center.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiabetes is a systemic illness that can cause a broad range of physiologic effects. Infection rates and wound healing are both affected through multiple mechanisms. Other physiologic changes increase risk for wounds as well as complex soft tissue infections ranging from simple cellulitis to necrotizing soft tissue infections.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith the significant financial burden of chronic cutaneous wounds on the healthcare system, not to the personal burden mention on those individuals afflicted, it has become increasingly essential to improve our clinical treatments. This requires the translation of the most recent benchtop approaches to clinical wound repair as our current treatment modalities have proven insufficient. The most promising potential treatment options rely on stem cell-based therapies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEffective bone tissue engineering is important to overcome the unmet clinical challenges as more than 1.6 million bone grafts are done annually in the United States. Successful bone tissue engineering needs minimally three critical constituents: osteoprogenitor cells, osteogenic factors, and osteoinductive/osteoconductive scaffolds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDue to availability and ease of harvest, adipose tissue is a favorable source of progenitor cells in regenerative medicine, but has yet to be optimized for osteogenic differentiation. The purpose of this study was to test cranial bone healing in a surgical defect model utilizing bone morphogenetic protein-9 (BMP-9) transduced immortalized murine adipocyte (iMAD) progenitor cells in a citrate-based, phase-changing, poly(polyethylene glycol citrate-co-N-isopropylacrylamide) (PPCN)-gelatin scaffold. Mesenchymal progenitor iMAD cells were transduced with adenovirus expressing either BMP-9 or green fluorescent protein control.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdvances in three-dimensional (3D) printing have increased feasibility towards the synthesis of living tissues. Known as 3D bioprinting, this technology involves the precise layering of cells, biologic scaffolds, and growth factors with the goal of creating bioidentical tissue for a variety of uses. Early successes have demonstrated distinct advantages over conventional tissue engineering strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith rapid advances in understanding molecular pathogenesis of human diseases in the era of genome sciences and systems biology, it is anticipated that increasing numbers of therapeutic genes or targets will become available for targeted therapies. Despite numerous setbacks, efficacious gene and/or cell-based therapies still hold the great promise to revolutionize the clinical management of human diseases. It is wildly recognized that poor gene delivery is the limiting factor for most gene therapies.
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