Proper care of early wounds to optimize healing and prevent complications.

Proper wound care has broad applications for all clinicians. Much of the future direction for enhancing wound repair focuses on key cells and growth factors, which is why possessing a strong understanding of the basic physiology of wound healing is imperative. This article first provides a thorough review of the phases of wound healing followed by a discussion on the latest wound management strategies.

PET/CT in the assessment of previously treated skull base malignancies.

Background: Altered anatomy, radiotherapy, hardware, and reconstructive materials distort the posttreatment ventral skull base. The diagnostic characteristics of positron emission tomography/CT (PET/CT) studies in those with suspected recurrent malignancy were assessed.

Methods: A retrospective review was undertaken of patients with head and neck cancer who had PET/CT for ventral skull base disease.

Stapedectomy: demographics in 2006.

Objective: To evaluate whether the performance of stapes surgery by residents during residency has decreased during the last 40 years, and if so, whether such a decrease has impacted the number of general otolaryngologists performing stapedectomy in the private practice setting.

Study Design: Survey questionnaire of members of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Methods: A short questionnaire was mailed to 1,700 members of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Solution conformations of short-chain phosphatidylcholine. Substrates of the phosphatidylcholine-preferring PLC of Bacillus cereus.

The phosphatidylcholine (PC)-preferring phospholipase C (PLC) from Bacillus cereus (PLC(Bc)) hydrolyzes various 1,2-diacyl derivatives of PC at different rates. Substrates with side chains having eight or more carbons are present in micellular form in aqueous media and are processed most rapidly. The catalytic efficiency (k(cat)/K(m)) for the hydrolyses of short-chain PCs at concentrations below their respective critical micelle concentrations also decreases as the side chains become shorter, and this loss of efficiency owes its origin to increases in K(m).