Results of emergency colectomy in nonagenarians and octogenarians previously labeled as prohibitive surgical risk.

Purpose: There are no standardized criteria for what constitutes prohibitive risk for emergency abdominal surgery.

Methods: A retrospective review was performed comparing two groups of patients having emergent colectomy. One group had previously been labeled as being prohibitive surgical risk and the other was a contemporary, non-prohibitive risk group also requiring emergency colectomy.

A Comparison of Endoscopic Versus Surgical Creation of a Cystogastrostomy to Drain Pancreatic Pseudocysts and Walled-Off Pancreatic Necrosis in 5500 Patients.

Objective: To determine the success, morbidity, and mortality rates of endoscopic and surgical creation of pancreatic cystenterostomies for the drainage of peripancreatic fluid collections, pseudocysts with necrotic debris, and walled-off pancreatic necrosis.

Summary Background Data: Endoscopic methods of cystenterostomy creation to drain pancreatic pseudocysts (with and without necrotic debris) and infected peripancreatic fluid collections are perceived to be less morbid than surgery. Contemporary reports document a very high complication rate with endoscopic methods.

Acute fulminant necrotizing mesenteric lymphadenitis causing bowel ischemia.

This case report documents the medical progression of a 56-year-old man who presented with a small bowel obstruction and was found to have acute fulminant necrotizing mesenteric lymphadenitis causing small intestinal ischemia. A large portion of the proximal jejunal mesentery was necrotic with vascular thrombosis leading to small bowel ischemia and obstruction. He was successfully managed surgically and survived.

The Dudley colectomy in urgent and emergent situations: a 10 patient case series.

Left-sided colon pathology that needs to be treated in an emergency situation usually requires a partial colectomy and colostomy with a Hartmann's pouch. Primary anastomosis is avoided with an unprepped left colon due to the risk of post-operative anastomotic leakage. In this series, 10 patients were treated with on-table lavage to wash out the colon, and left colectomy with primary anastomosis in urgent and emergent situations without a protective ileostomy (the Dudley colectomy).

Role of Fish Oil in Post-Cardiotomy Bleeding: A Summary of the Basic Science and Clinical Trials.

Background: Omega-3 fatty acids are widely used. This article reviews the coagulopathic effects of fish oil.

Methods: A review was performed of all English articles that addressed the topic from 1980 to 2017.

Case report of a giant colonic sigmoid diverticulum causing sigmoid volvulus.

Introduction: Giant colonic diverticulum is a rare complication of colonic diverticulosis that occurs when a single diverticulum enlarges to over 4cm in diameter. There have been fewer than 200 cases reported worldwide since it was first described in 1946.

Presentation Of Case: The author presents a rare case of a giant colonic diverticulum that presented as a sigmoid volvulus.

Blunt traumatic infrarenal aortic intimal flap progressing to pseudoaneurysm over 3 months.

Blunt traumatic infrarenal aortic injuries are unusual, and the formation of a delayed pseudoaneurysm of the aorta is even more rare. In this report, a young woman developed a small intimal flap of the infrarenal aorta after a motor vehicle accident which progressed into a 3 cm pseudoaneurysm after 3 months. Operative repair was successful and the patient recovered.

Procalcitonin-guided antibiotic therapy for septic patients in the surgical intensive care unit.

In critically ill patients, elucidating those patients with the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) from an infectious source (sepsis), versus those who have SIRS without infection, can be challenging since the clinical features are the same. Even with strict monitoring and testing, 39-98 % of patients with SIRS will never have bacteriological confirmation of an infection, and 6-17 % of patients with a documented infection will not show signs of SIRS. Due to this overlap, an extensive amount of research has been performed to investigate ways of determining and separating SIRS from infection, compared to SIRS due to trauma, surgical stress, or other non-infectious causes.

The effect of combined glutamate receptor blockade in the NTS on the hypoxic ventilatory response in awake rats differs from the effect of individual glutamate receptor blockade.

Ventilatory acclimatization to hypoxia (VAH) increases the hypoxic ventilatory response (HVR) and causes persistent hyperventilation when normoxia is restored, which is consistent with the occurrence of synaptic plasticity in acclimatized animals. Recently, we demonstrated that antagonism of individual glutamate receptor types (GluRs) within the nucleus tractus solitarii (NTS) modifies this plasticity and VAH (J. Physiol.

Blunt cardiac trauma: a review of the current knowledge and management.

Blunt cardiac injuries are highly lethal. A review of the world's English literature on the topic reveals a lack of Level 1 Evidence and few cohesive guidelines for the management of these patients. An online database query was performed using the PubMed medical database.

Tissue expander-assisted ventral hernia repair for the skin-grafted damage control abdomen.

Purpose: To describe a novel technique using tissue expanders that allows skin coverage over large ventral hernia repairs after damage control laparotomy, including patients with stomas.

Methods: A retrospective study of a single author's experience with the technique.

Results: Tissue expanders were placed in the lateral abdominal wall skin adjacent to stomas and expanded over a short 6-week course.

Intercostal artery aneurysmosis.

True intercostal artery aneurysms have been reported to occur in conjunction with neurofibromatosis, coarctation of the aorta, and Kawasaki disease. However, there has not been a previous report of a patient with intercostal artery aneurysmosis and no known or diagnosed associated condition. We describe the first such patient and review the literature.

Scanning angle Raman spectroscopy of poly(3-hexylthiophene)-based films on indium tin oxide, gold, and sapphire surfaces.

Interest in realizing conjugated polymer-based films with controlled morphology for efficient electronic devices, including photovoltaics, requires a parallel effort to characterize these films. Scanning angle (SA) Raman spectroscopy is applied to measure poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM)-blend morphology on sapphire, gold, and indium tin oxide interfaces, including functional organic photovoltaic devices. Nonresonant SA Raman spectra are collected in seconds with signal-to-noise ratios that exceed 80, which is possible due to the reproducible SA signal enhancement.

Plastic-syringe induced silicone contamination in organic photovoltaic fabrication: implications for small-volume additives.

Herein, the implications of silicone contamination found in solution-processed conjugated polymer solar cells are explored. Similar to a previous work based on molecular cells, we find this contamination as a result of the use of plastic syringes during fabrication. However, in contrast to the molecular case, we find that glass-syringe fabricated devices give superior performance than plastic-syringe fabricated devices in poly(3-hexylthiophene)-based cells.

Passive mechanical properties of rat abdominal wall muscles suggest an important role of the extracellular connective tissue matrix.

Abdominal wall muscles have a unique morphology suggesting a complex role in generating and transferring force to the spinal column. Studying passive mechanical properties of these muscles may provide insights into their ability to transfer force among structures. Biopsies from rectus abdominis (RA), external oblique (EO), internal oblique (IO), and transverse abdominis (TrA) were harvested from male Sprague-Dawley rats, and single muscle fibers and fiber bundles (4-8 fibers ensheathed in their connective tissue matrix) were isolated and mechanically stretched in a passive state.

Amplitude-modulated sinusoidal microchannels for observing adaptability in C. elegans locomotion.

In this paper, we present a movement-based assay to observe adaptability in Caenorhabditis elegans locomotion behavior. The assay comprises a series of sinusoidal microchannels with a fixed wavelength and modulating (increasing or decreasing) amplitude. The channel width is comparable to the body diameter of the organism.

A microfluidic platform for high-sensitivity, real-time drug screening on C. elegans and parasitic nematodes.

This paper describes a new microfluidic platform for screening drugs and their dose response on the locomotion behavior of free living nematodes and parasitic nematodes. The system offers a higher sensitivity drug screening chip which employs a combination of existing and newly developed methods. Real-time observation of the entire drug application process (i.