Epidemiological assessment of hypospadias by degree of severity.

Purpose: Hypospadias is one of the most common congenital malformations, with reportedly increasing rates of prevalence but poorly defined etiological factors for the disease and the varying degrees of manifestation. We characterize the prevalence of hypospadias in Arkansas with consideration of the degree of hypospadias.

Materials And Methods: Data from the Arkansas State Birth Defects Surveillance Program of the Arkansas Reproductive Health Monitoring System were used to identify hypospadias cases and all male births by women residing in Arkansas between 1998 and 2007.

Alternative approaches to expanding pediatric urology services and productivity.

Purpose: We critically assessed the outcomes of a new model of pediatric urology delivery using alternative approaches to expand care without increasing the number of pediatric urologists. The approaches included the use of advanced practice nurse practitioners, pediatric physician specialists, part-time contract pediatric urologists from neighboring institutions and part-time contract adult urologists from our university.

Materials And Methods: Data were collected from the Division of Pediatric Urology at Arkansas Children's Hospital during 2009 and 2010.

Results: Survey of pediatric urology electronic medical records-use and perspectives.

Purpose: The $19.2 billion Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act will have a dramatic effect on the adoption of electronic medical records in the United States by directly reimbursing for the adoption of electronic medical records in the future. We sought to gain an understanding of electronic medical record use in pediatric urology to aid in the transition to electronic medical records.

Multi-institutional validation study of neural networks to predict duration of stay after laparoscopic radical/simple or partial nephrectomy.

Purpose: We developed models to predict post-laparoscopic radical or simple nephrectomy (LapNx) and post-laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (LapPNx) hospital duration of stay (DOS).

Materials And Methods: We performed a retrospective review (design group) of all 726 patients (July 1997 to April 2004) who underwent LapNx or LapPNx at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF). Preoperative findings were recorded.

The effects of ketamine, phencyclidine and lidocaine on catecholamine secretion from cultured bovine adrenal chromaffin cells.

The ability of ketamine, phencyclidine and analogues to alter catecholamine secretion from cultured bovine adrenal chromaffin cells was investigated. Both ketamine and phencyclidine specifically inhibited nicotinic agonist-induced secretion at concentrations which did not alter secretion induced by elevated K+ depolarization. The inhibition of nicotinic agonist-induced secretion was not overcome by increasing concentrations of nicotinic agonist.