[Effect of autologous platelet-rich plasma on heart infarction in sheep].

Objective: Myocardial infarction is the most common cause of congestive heart failure. The objective of this work is to evaluate, in experimental animals, morphological and histological effects of the implantation of autologous platelet-rich plasma in infarcted heart sheep.

Methods: Twenty-four ewes were used, they were surgically infarcted through left thoracotomy and two coronary arteries were ligated (first and second diagonal).

Pentafecta: a new concept for reporting outcomes of robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy.

Background: Widespread use of prostate-specific antigen screening has resulted in younger and healthier men being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Their demands and expectations of surgical intervention are much higher and cannot be adequately addressed with the classic trifecta outcome measures.

Objective: A new and more comprehensive method for reporting outcomes after radical prostatectomy, the pentafecta, is proposed.

History of robotic surgery.

Robotic surgery is one of the most advanced forms of Minimally Invasive Surgery. Although the application of robotic technology to surgical robotics started some 20 years ago, the earliest work in robotics and automation can be traced back to 400 BC. Some of the early pioneers include Archytas of Arentum, Leonardo da Vinci, Gianello Toriano, and Pierre Jaquet-Droz, and we owe to these philosophers and scientists the fact that we can offer the benefit of minimal invasion in surgery.

[Patients suffering dilated chagasic cardiopathy or non chagasic cardiopathy show an increased levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha].

Chagas' disease is a public health problem in Venezuela, affecting people living in rural areas. 30% of the patients evolve to a Chronic Chagasic Myocardiopathy (CCM) characterized by heart failure, arrhythmias, incapacity to work and sudden death. There are not predictive factors to determine the evolution from the indeterminate form of the disease (asymptomatic form) to CCM.