Publications by authors named "Elsa Nico"

Background And Importance: The surgical management of posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA) aneurysms often poses a challenge because of tight surgical corridors, proximity to the lower cranial nerves, and the presence of perforators supplying the medulla. This report describes an excision and double reimplantation bypass for treatment of a dolichoectatic PICA aneurysm found on familial screening in a young man with a family history of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Clinical Presentation: The patient underwent a right far-lateral craniotomy with excision of the dolichoectatic right PICA aneurysm with an additional outflow branch.

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Introduction: Cerebral venous sinus stenting (CVSS) is an effective treatment for idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) secondary to dural venous sinus stenosis. Traditional selection of patients for CVSS has been made by microcatheter manometry, but pressure measurements are often equivocal. Here we present the results of a series of cases in which venous flat-panel CT (FP-CT) was used as an adjunct to microcatheter manometry to improve decision making and precise stent placement during CVSS.

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Purpose: To address the need for a pediatric surgical checklist for adult providers.

Background: Pediatric surgery is unique due to the specific needs and many tasks that are employed in the care of adults require accommodations for children. There are some resources for adult surgeons to perform safe pediatric surgery and to assist such surgeons in pediatric emergencies, we created a straightforward checklist based on current literature.

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Background: Giant ophthalmic artery (OphA) aneurysms remain surgically challenging despite the progress in endovascular treatments. This study describes the contralateral interoptic corridor in select patients based on imaging criteria suitable for clipping. The aim of this study was to show that despite the growing use of novel endovascular techniques, such as coil embolization and flow diversion, for the treatment of OphA aneurysms, microsurgical clipping may still be preferred for giant ones under certain conditions.

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: Patients with supratentorial cavernous malformations (SCMs) commonly present with seizures. First-line treatments for cavernoma-related epilepsy (CRE) include conservative management (antiepileptic drugs (AEDs)) and surgery. We compared seizure outcomes of CRE patients after early (≤6 months) vs.

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Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate long-term prognostic factors and clinical outcomes in patients with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) treated with ventriculo-peritoneal shunt (VPS).

Methods: This single-center retrospective observational study of prospectively collected data included patients with probable iNPH treated with VPS surgery. All patients underwent complete preoperative assessment, including past medical history and neurological examination, dynamic cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and preoperative CSF samplings.

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Introduction: Approximately 33 million people suffer catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) from surgery and/or anesthesia costs. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate catastrophic and impoverishing expenditure associated with surgery and anesthesia in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Methods: We performed a systematic review of all studies from 1990 to 2021 that reported CHE in LMICs for treatment of a condition requiring surgical intervention, including cesarean section, trauma care, and other surgery.

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Racial and socioeconomic health disparities are well documented in the literature. This study examined patient demographics, including socioeconomic status (SES), among individuals presenting with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) and unruptured intracranial aneurysm (UIA) to identify factors associated with aSAH presentation. A retrospective assessment was conducted of all patients with aSAH and UIA who presented to a large-volume cerebrovascular center and underwent microsurgical treatment from January 2014 through July 2019.

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Introduction: There are no clear indications for the best choice of anti-seizure medications to control brain tumor related epilepsy. In vitro studies have shown an antitumoral effect of Levetiracetam and Lacosamide on glioblastoma IDH-wild type.

Research Question: This study investigates whether the use of levetiracetam and/or lacosamide impacts survival rates.

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Background And Objectives: Preoperative embolization of metastatic spinal tumors (MSTs) has proven advantageous in limiting intraoperative blood loss (IBL) during resection. N-butyl cyanoacrylate (nBCA) is a liquid embolic agent known for its rapid hemostatic effects. However, nBCA is associated with a higher risk of distal nontarget embolization.

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Background: Rosai-Dorfman disease (RDD) is a rare, nonmalignant histiocytosis. It typically occurs in lymph nodes, skin, and soft tissues, but numerous reports of central nervous system involvement exist in the literature. The peripheral nervous system has rarely been involved.

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Objective: The PHASES (Population, Hypertension, Age, Size, Earlier subarachnoid hemorrhage, Site) score was developed to facilitate risk stratification for management of unruptured intracranial aneurysms (UIAs). This study aimed to identify the optimal PHASES score cutoff for predicting neurologic outcomes in patients with surgically treated aneurysms.

Methods: All patients who underwent microneurosurgical treatment for UIA at a large quaternary center from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2020, were retrospectively reviewed.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study focuses on using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve the evaluation of glioblastoma (a type of brain tumor) through MRI imaging, which is crucial for clinical decisions and surgical planning.
  • - Researchers trained a segmentation algorithm on a dataset of 237 MRIs (71 preoperative and 166 postoperative) from patients with Grade IV Glioma to enhance the accuracy of tumor assessment before and after surgery.
  • - Results indicate that while the algorithm performed well in preoperative evaluation (DICE score of 91.09), its performance was lower in postoperative assessments (DICE score of 72.31), suggesting that AI can help mitigate issues related to low-quality MRI images.
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Purpose: To address the need for a pediatric surgical checklist for adult providers.

Background: Pediatric surgery is unique due to the specific needs and many tasks that are employed in the care of adults require accommodations for children. There are some resources for adult surgeons to perform safe pediatric surgery and to assist such surgeons in pediatric emergencies, we created a straightforward checklist based on current literature.

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Objective: Antithrombotic medications (ATMs), including antiplatelet therapy (APT) and oral anticoagulants (OACs), are widely used in current clinical practice for the prevention and treatment of a variety of cardiovascular diseases, deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary thromboembolisms. The long-term usage of these drugs, associated with an inherent risk of bleeding, raises concerns for unruptured cerebrovascular malformations (UCVMs), such as arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs), and intracranial aneurysms (IAs), in which the bleeding risk also poses a major threat. The aim of this study was to assess the safety and risk-benefit ratio of ATMs in these various neurosurgical diseases and to give neurosurgeons a safe and reasonable choice regarding whether to administer ATMs to these patients during the course of the disease.

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Background: Although approximately 41% of women experience sexual dysfunction, limited education on female sexual medicine (FSM) in medical school results in underpreparedness among physicians when addressing these bothersome conditions.

Aim: This study aims to evaluate the extent to which FSM is represented in medical education by examining current preclinical and clinical curricula.

Methods: Preclinical curriculum materials on female sexual anatomy, physiology, and pathology, as well as obstetrics and gynecology clinical materials (syllabi, lecture materials, and supplemental resources), were collected from medical schools in the Chicago area.

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Purpose: Workplace injury is a commonplace occurrence in the USA. Spine injuries are especially devastating as they can cause chronic pain and limit mobility which prevents patients from returning to work. Gaining a better understanding of the patients, mechanisms, and treatments associated with these injuries can aid in improving outcomes.

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Arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are high-pressure, low-resistance arterial-venous shunts without intervening capillaries. Up to 60% of AVMs present with an intracranial hemorrhage; however, noninvasive neuroimaging has increasingly diagnosed incidental AVMs. AVM management depends on weighing the lifetime rupture risk against the risks of intervention.

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Background: Approximately 3.2%-6% of the general population harbor an unruptured intracranial aneurysm (UIA). Ruptured aneurysms represent a significant healthcare burden, and preventing rupture relies on early detection and treatment.

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Up to one-third of the global burden of disease involves surgical conditions; however, 5 in 7 people across the world do not have access to timely, affordable surgical care. Low- and middle-income countries account for the majority of the inequities in access to timely surgical care, where the availability of specialty surgical services such as neurosurgery is limited or unavailable. Albania, situated in the Western Balkan region, was once one of the poorest countries in Europe.

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Article Synopsis
  • Clitoral adhesions occur when the prepuce sticks to the glans, affecting up to 22% of women with sexual dysfunction, but the causes remain unclear.
  • Research indicates that chronic scarring conditions may contribute to these adhesions, which can result in clitoral pain, discomfort, and problems with arousal and orgasm.
  • Future studies are needed to explore the causes of clitoral adhesions and to assess the effectiveness of current management techniques, including surgical options and topical treatments.
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Article Synopsis
  • * The study assessed the effectiveness and patient satisfaction of a non-surgical lysis procedure by analyzing responses from a survey sent to 61 women who underwent the treatment.
  • * Results showed high satisfaction rates, with 76% of women experiencing reduced pain and over 70% reporting improved sexual satisfaction; most participants would recommend the procedure to others.
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BIN1 (amphyphysin-II) is a structural protein involved in T-tubule (TT) formation and phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) is responsible for localization of BIN1 to sarcolemma. The goal of this study was to determine if PIP2-mediated targeting of BIN1 to sarcolemma is compromised during the development of heart failure (HF) and is responsible for TT remodeling. Immunohistochemistry showed co-localization of BIN1, Cav1.

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A highly organized transverse-tubule (TT) system is essential to normal Ca cycling and cardiac function. We explored the relationship between the progressive disruption of TTs and resulting Ca cycling during the development of heart failure (HF). Confocal imaging was used to measure Ca transients and 2-D z-stack images in left ventricular epicardial myocytes of intact hearts from spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Wistar-Kyoto control rats.

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