Survival of a patient with tetanus in Bhutan using a magnesium infusion managed only by clinical signs.

Tetanus is a life-threatening disease that continues to have a high prevalence in developing countries. Severe muscle spasms often require patients to receive tracheostomy, high-dose sedatives, and sometimes prolonged neuromuscular blockade. Magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) infusion has great promise as an adjunct treatment for severe tetanus, as it may allow clinicians to decrease the dose of other sedative medications.

Subungual wooden splinter visualized with bedside sonography.

Bedside ultrasound has become increasingly important as an adjunct to clinical diagnosis and procedures in the emergency department. It is only recently that this modality, which involves no ionizing radiation, has become incorporated into the pediatric emergency department. We report a case of a 10-year-old boy with a suspected subungual wooden foreign body.

Enhancing osteochondral allograft viability: effects of storage media composition.

Osteochondral allograft transplantation is a well-accepted treatment for articular cartilage damage. However, chondrocyte viability declines during graft storage, which may compromise graft performance. We first tested the hypothesis that the composition of commonly used storage media affects the viability of articular chondrocytes over time; we then tested the hypothesis that the addition of insulin growth factor-1 or the apoptosis inhibitor ZVAD-fmk could enhance the storage properties of serum-free media.

Chondrocyte apoptosis: implications for osteochondral allograft transplantation.

Osteochondral allograft transplantation is a useful technique to manage larger articular cartilage injuries. One factor that may compromise the effectiveness of this procedure is chondrocyte cell death that occurs during the storage, preparation, and implantation of the osteochondral grafts. Loss of viable chondrocytes may negatively affect osteochondral edge integration and long-term function.