The Impact of Preoperative Patient Education on Postoperative Pain, Opioid Use, and Psychological Outcomes: A Narrative Review.

Background: Recent studies have shown that preoperative education can positively impact postoperative recovery, improving postoperative pain management and patient satisfaction. Gaps in preoperative education regarding postoperative pain and opioid use may lead to increased patient anxiety and persistent postoperative opioid use.

Objectives: The objective of this narrative review was to identify, examine, and summarize the available evidence on the use and effectiveness of preoperative educational interventions with respect to postoperative outcomes.

Prevention and Management of Chronic Postsurgical Pain and Persistent Opioid Use Following Solid Organ Transplantation: Experiences From the Toronto General Hospital Transitional Pain Service.

Background: With >700 transplant surgeries performed each year, Toronto General Hospital (TGH) is currently one of the largest adult transplant centers in North America. There is a lack of literature regarding both the identification and management of chronic postsurgical pain (CPSP) after organ transplantation. Since 2014, the TGH Transitional Pain Service (TPS) has helped manage patients who developed CPSP after solid organ transplantation (SOT), including heart, lung, liver, and renal transplants.

Manta Ray Inspired Soft Robot Fish with Tough Hydrogels as Structural Elements.

The design of soft robots capable of navigation underwater has received tremendous research interest due to the robots' versatile applications in marine explorations. Inspired by marine animals such as jellyfish, scientists have developed various soft robotic fishes by using elastomers as the major material. However, elastomers have a hydrophobic network without embedded water, which is different from the gel-state body of the prototypes and results in high contrast to the surrounding environment and thus poor acoustic stealth.

Digital Light Processing 3D Printing of Tough Supramolecular Hydrogels with Sophisticated Architectures as Impact-Absorption Elements.

Processing tough hydrogels into sophisticated architectures is crucial for their applications as structural elements. However, Digital Light Processing (DLP) printing of tough hydrogels is challenging because of the low-speed gelation and toughening process. Described here is a simple yet versatile system suitable for DLP printing to form tough hydrogel architectures.

3D printing of a tough double-network hydrogel and its use as a scaffold to construct a tissue-like hydrogel composite.

To mimic biological tissues with high toughness such as cartilage, it is highly desired to fabricate stable and tough hydrogels with intricate shapes to act as a structural support. Extrusion-based 3D printing is a promising method to fabricate 3D scaffolds with various architectures; however, printing tough hydrogel structures with high fidelity and resolution is still a challenge. In this work, we adopt the fast sol-to-gel transition of κ-carrageenan in the solution of acrylamide upon cooling to fix the printed scaffolds and polymerize the precursor solution to form the second network.

Engineering Tough Metallosupramolecular Hydrogel Films with Kirigami Structures for Compliant Soft Electronics.

A simple and effective approach is demonstrated to fabricate tough metallosupramolecular hydrogel films of poly(acrylic acid) by one-pot photopolymerization of the precursor solution in the presence of Zr ions that form coordination complexes with the carboxyl groups and serve as the physical crosslinks of the matrix. Both as-prepared and equilibrated hydrogel films are transparent, tough, and stable over a wide range of temperature, ionic strength, and pH. The thickness of the films can be easily tailored with minimum value of ≈7 μm.

Reversibly Transforming a Highly Swollen Polyelectrolyte Hydrogel to an Extremely Tough One and its Application as a Tubular Grasper.

Poly(2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid) and its copolymer hydrogels are typical polyelectrolyte gels with extremely high swelling capacity that are widely used in industry. It's common to consider these hydrogels as weak materials that are difficult to toughen. Reported here is a facile strategy to transform swollen and weak poly(acrylamide-co-2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid) [P(AAm-co-AMPS)] hydrogels to tough ones by forming strong sulfonate-Zr metal-coordination complexes.

Ultrathin κ-Carrageenan/Chitosan Hydrogel Films with High Toughness and Antiadhesion Property.

Designing tough biopolymer-based hydrogels as structural biomaterials has both scientific and practical significances. We report a facile approach to prepare polysaccharide-based hydrogel films with remarkable mechanical performances and antiadhesion property. The hydrogel films with a thickness of 40-60 μm were prepared by mixing aqueous solutions of κ-carrageenan (κ-CG) and protonated chitosan (CS), evaporating the solvent, and then swelling the casted film in water to achieve the equilibrium state.

Primary outcomes reporting in trials of paediatric type 1 diabetes mellitus: a systematic review.

Objective: Our objective was to systematically review randomised clinical trials (RCTs) of paediatric type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) to assess reporting of (1) primary outcome, (2) outcome measurement properties and (3) presence or absence of adverse events.

Methods: Electronic searches in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Cochrane SR and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) databases were undertaken. The search period was between 2001 and 2017.

Anesthesia for hip arthroscopy: a narrative review.

Purpose: Hip arthroscopy is a minimally invasive surgical procedure indicated for the treatment of specific hip disorders. In this narrative review, we aim to examine the key components in providing anesthesia for this procedure.

Source: MEDLINE(®), PubMed, and EMBASE™ databases were searched for peer-reviewed articles discussing the anesthetic management of patients undergoing hip arthroscopy.

Notch and TGFβ form a positive regulatory loop and regulate EMT in epithelial ovarian cancer cells.

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays a critical role in the progression of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). However, the mechanisms that regulate EMT in EOC are not fully understood. Here, we report that activation of Notch1 induces EMT in EOC cells as evidenced by downregulation of E-cadherin and cytokeratins, upregulation of Slug and Snail, as well as morphological changes.