Study of Pediatric Operative Recreational Trauma: A Retrospective Analysis of Pediatric Sports-Related Facial Fractures.

Background: In the United States, most school-aged children participate in some form of organized sports. Despite the advantages to social and physical development that organized sports may have, these activities also place a significant number of America's youth at risk for facial injuries. Pediatric facial fractures resulting from sports trauma are well documented within pediatric literature.

Promoting active commuting to school through environmental and policy supports in Buffalo, New York.

Background: Children in Buffalo, New York, have limited opportunities for safe, enjoyable physical activity. The Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities-Buffalo partnership established in 2009 created environmental and policy supports to facilitate physical activity among youth.

Methods: This article uses a mixed-methods approach to document environment and policy changes in support of active commuting to school.

Primary fascial closure with mesh reinforcement is superior to bridged mesh repair for abdominal wall reconstruction.

Background: Many surgeons believe that primary fascial closure with mesh reinforcement should be the goal of abdominal wall reconstruction (AWR), yet others have reported acceptable outcomes when mesh is used to bridge the fascial edges. It has not been clearly shown how the outcomes for these techniques differ. We hypothesized that bridged repairs result in higher hernia recurrence rates than mesh-reinforced repairs that achieve fascial coaptation.

Complex reconstruction of desmoid tumor resections does not increase desmoid tumor recurrence.

Background: The propensity of desmoid tumors to develop in scars has led some surgeons to limit the complexity of desmoid defect reconstruction as a strategy for avoiding desmoid recurrence. We hypothesized that desmoid recurrence rates are similar despite the magnitude of reconstruction.

Study Design: We retrospectively compared recurrence rates between patients who underwent reconstruction and patients who underwent primary closure without reconstruction after desmoid tumor resection in consecutive patients for 15 years.

Transthoracic echocardiography does not reliably predict involvement of the aortic valve in patients with a discrete subaortic shelf.

Background: A discrete subaortic membrane cannot only cause left ventricular outflow tract obstruction, but can grow onto the aortic valve leaflets. The late finding of this encroachment is aortic valve insufficiency or stenosis. Echocardiography is used to follow the progression of outflow tract obstruction, but its ability to show subaortic membrane encroachment onto the aortic valve is unclear.

Leveraging neighborhood-scale change for policy and program reform in Buffalo, New York.

Background: The Healthy Communities Initiative (HCI) affects 8500 employees working in the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and 8925 residents of adjacent neighborhoods, where 37% of people live below the poverty line, and a majority (68.7%) identify themselves as African-American.

Intervention: The HCI partnership, which includes multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary organizations and neighborhood residents, implemented the Active Living by Design community action model with greatest emphasis on achieving policy and planning changes to support active living behaviors.

Cardiac output measurement by arterial pressure waveform analysis during optimization of biventricular pacing after cardiac surgery.

Biventricular pacing (BiVP) can optimize cardiac output (CO) in patients after cardiac surgery, so devices that calculate continuous CO from arterial pressure may be a useful tool. We investigated PulseCO for measuring CO during optimization by comparison with aortic flow probe measurement. Seven patients in the Biventricular Pacing After Cardiac Surgery (BiPACS) trial were studied.

Interrupted aortic arch repair: aortic arch advancement without a patch minimizes arch reinterventions.

Background: Surgical repair of interrupted aortic arch (IAA) remains challenging and is associated with significant mortality and incidence of late arch obstruction, as recently reported by the Congenital Heart Surgeons' Society (CHSS). In particular, the CHSS reported that any technique other than direct anastomosis with patch augmentation is a risk factor for arch reintervention. The experience at Texas Children's Hospital with IAA repair using an aortic arch advancement technique without a patch was examined.