Publications by authors named "Joanna K L Wong"

Article Synopsis
  • Nitrous oxide (NO) is a major greenhouse gas contributing to the healthcare sector's carbon footprint, with pre-utilisation losses of up to 95%, which can potentially be minimized by decommissioning NO manifolds.
  • A study involving 18 hospitals in Greater London collected data on NO utilization over five days, revealing that only 18% of procured NO was utilized, leading to estimated pre-utilisation losses of over 5 million liters.
  • The results indicated strong support among anaesthetists for decommissioning manifolds, highlighting both environmental and economic advantages in improving NO management.
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Article Synopsis
  • The review compares recovery, oncological outcomes, and quality of life between open radical cystectomy (ORC) and robot-assisted radical cystectomy (RARC) for bladder cancer patients from randomized trials.
  • RARC shows shorter hospital stays and similar complication rates compared to ORC, but ORC has shorter operative times and higher rates of blood loss and transfusions.
  • RARC improves physical and role functioning but does not significantly enhance overall quality of life or survival rates, suggesting it may be preferable for patients wanting to minimize blood transfusions and hospital stays.
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Background: Diabetes is a risk factor for postoperative complications. Previous meta-analyses have shown that elevated glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels are associated with postoperative complications in various surgical populations. However, this is the first meta-analysis to investigate the association between preoperative HbA1c levels and postoperative complications in patients undergoing elective major abdominal surgery.

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Objective: Absorbable inferior vena cava filters (IVCFs) could be more effective and safer than standard IVCFs in theory, as they will self-resorb over time, thus rendering the need for filter retrieval and the risks associated with it unnecessary. This scoping review aims to evaluate the design of current absorbable IVCFs, review the development phase of the absorbable IVCFs, assess the efficacy of the absorbable IVCFs and their complications, and discuss the limitations and areas for future research.

Methods: MEDLINE, PubMed, and Embase databases were electronically searched and citations of relevant studies manually searched.

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Introduction: Diabetes has an increasing worldwide prevalence. It is known to be a predisposing factor for postoperative complications. Preoperative glycaemic control strategies should be pursued as glycaemic control could serve as a modifiable risk factor.

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The potential use of stem cell-based therapies for the repair and regeneration of various tissues and organs offers a paradigm shift in regenerative medicine. The use of either embryonic stem cells (ESC) or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) in clinical situations is limited because of regulations and ethical considerations even though these cells are theoretically highly beneficial. While clinically, adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) are one of the most widely used types of stem cells used more than five years in clinically setting.

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Actigraphy is increasingly incorporated into clinical practice to monitor intervention effectiveness and patient health in congestive heart failure (CHF). We explored the prognostic impact of actigraphy-quantified physical activity (AQPA) on CHF outcomes. PubMed and Medline databases were systematically searched for cross-sectional studies, cohort studies or randomised controlled trials from January 2007 to December 2017.

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Introduction: Gait is affected in women with pelvic girdle pain (PGP), a musculoskeletal condition affecting 20% of pregnant women. Whilst there is evidence of spatiotemporal changes in gait during healthy pregnancy, less is known in relation to women with PGP. Appreciating gait characteristics during healthy pregnancy could inform our understanding of the role of gait in PGP.

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Organic nanoparticle-based (ONP) gene therapy is a potential strategy to cure human cancer. However, there are still many practical barriers before the promising results from in vitro and preclinical studies can be translated to clinical success. We discuss the reasons behind the hesitant uptake by the clinic.

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The high mortality rates of cancer patients receiving standard treatments emphasize the crucial need for alternative treatments. One promising strategy is to use organic nanoparticles (NPs) for gene delivery. Although multifunctional NPs theoretically have many desirable properties as gene vectors, there are several practical barriers to successful gene delivery.

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