Choose Your Patients Wisely: A Preoperative Protocol to Reduce Surgical Site Infection Rates in Elective Neurosurgical Procedures.

Objective: Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the most common and costly of all hospital-acquired infections, occurring in 5 percent of patients and accounting for 20% of all hospital-acquired infections. Preoperatively, we developed a protocol where patients were screened using hemoglobin A 1c (HbA1c) and nasal swabs. If HbA1c was greater than 9, patients were rescheduled for surgery when their HbA1c was less than 9.

K252a inhibits proliferation of glioma cells by blocking platelet-derived growth factor signal transduction.

Growth factors are known to regulate glioma proliferation. The glioma cell lines U87 and T98G were examined for evidence of an autocrine stimulatory loop involving the neurotrophin family of growth factors. Although neurotrophin-3 and TrkC RNA were detected by reverse transcription-PCR, there was no evidence of significant interaction between neurotrophin-3 and its cognate receptor TrkC.

4-Aminopyridine causes apoptosis and blocks an outward rectifier K+ channel in malignant astrocytoma cell lines.

Among the ion channels and pumps activated by growth factor stimulation, K+ channels have been implicated in the growth and proliferation of several cancer cell lines. The role of these channels in central nervous system tumors, however, has not been described. This study used the malignant astrocytoma cell lines U87 and A172.

Intraarterial papaverine infusion for cerebral vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Purpose: To evaluate the techniques and efficacy of intracranial intraarterial papaverine infusion for symptomatic vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by aneurysm rupture.

Methods: Papaverine was infused on 19 occasions in 14 patients, 6 hours to 2 days after spasm became apparent clinically. Sixty vascular territories were treated.