Publications by authors named "Maria A Pino"

Background: Dumbbell tumors are typically benign schwannomas, neurofibromas, and meningiomas and only rarely there are malignant variants of these lesions or other malignant histotypes. Here, a 34-year-old male presented with a thoracic spinal dumbbell metastatic neuroendocrine carcinoma of unknown primary origin.

Case Description: A 34-year-old male presented with 2 months of thoracic pain and progressive mid thoracic sensory loss.

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The ischemia/reperfusion mechanism is believed to be responsible for parenchymal damage caused by temporary hypoperfusion and worsened by the subsequent attempt of reperfusion. This represents a true challenge for physicians of several fields, including neurosurgeons. A limited number of papers have shed the light on a rare pathologic condition that affects patients experiencing an unexplained neurologic deficit after spine surgery, the so-called "white cord syndrome.

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Intraoperative ultrasound (IOUS) is becoming progressively more common during brain tumor surgery. We present data from our case series of brain tumor surgery performed with the aid of IOUS in order to identify IOUS advantages and crucial aspects that may improve the management of neurosurgical procedures for brain tumors. From January 2021 to September 2021, 17 patients with different brain tumors underwent brain tumor surgery aided by the use of IOUS.

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Background: Research has shown that physicians' recommendations are one of the top predictors for individuals to receive vaccines. This study examined the perceptions of new COVID-19 vaccines among the medical students at the X and the factors that influenced their opinions.

Objective: To measure X students' perception of a new COVID-19 vaccine and the factors which drive their opinions.

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Background: Intraoperative ultrasound (IOUS) is becoming more and more adopted in neurosurgery, since it has been associated to greater extent of resection (EOR) and to gross total resection (GTR) during brain tumor surgery. IOUS main limitations are spatial resolution, width and orientation of the field of view and scan quality, which are operator-dependent. Furthermore, most neurosurgeons are not confident with this technique, which needs a long learning curve in order to identify and interpret anatomic structures.

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Brain gliomas require a deep knowledge of their effects on brain connectivity. Understanding the complex relationship between tumor and functional brain is the preliminary and fundamental step for the subsequent surgery. The extent of resection (EOR) is an independent variable of surgical effectiveness and it correlates with the overall survival.

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Transcranial MR-guided Focused ultrasound (tcMRgFUS) is a surgical procedure that adopts focused ultrasounds beam towards a specific therapeutic target through the intact skull. The convergence of focused ultrasound beams onto the target produces tissue effects through released energy. Regarding neurosurgical applications, tcMRgFUS has been successfully adopted as a non-invasive procedure for ablative purposes such as thalamotomy, pallidotomy, and subthalamotomy for movement disorders.

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Background: Because the neurological presentation of spinal epidural hematomas (SEH) is often not specific, they may be misdiagnosed as acute lumbar disk herniations. Here, we present a case in which a traumatic disc extrusion mimicked an epidural hematoma and reviewed the appropriate literature.

Case Description: A 27-year-old male sustained a high-energy fall.

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Background: Therapeutic epidural spinal injections (ESIs) of steroids are one of the most common nonsurgical management modalities employed for alleviating pain due to chronic persistent lumbar spinal disease. However, it is well documented that they have significant risks and complications without any long-term efficacy. ESI may result in epidural empyema which may be difficult to diagnose with delays resulting in significant permanent neurological sequelae.

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Background: Osteopathic medical students (OMS) who establish healthy behaviors for themselves are more likely to counsel their future patients on appropriate self-care. This study compared the lifestyle habits of OMS with those of age-matched peers in other areas of study, which served as the control group.

Method: In the fall of 2018, a survey was administered to OMS of the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYIT-COM) (group I) and graduate programs from the same school (group II), to assess their lifestyle habits.

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Purpose: Medical students must be provided the basic science knowledge appropriate and applicable for preparing them for best-practice medicine. To date, there have been no documented studies in the USA that have directly surveyed practicing physicians on their perspectives of their basic science/preclinical medical school education and how it could be modified to help them deliver best patient care. This study was the first to examine this information.

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Mechlorethamine (HN2) is an alkylating agent and sulfur mustard gas mimetic which is also used in anticancer therapy. HN2 is associated with skin inflammation and blistering which can lead to secondary infections. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the time-dependent dermatotoxicity of HN2 using the mouse ear vesicant model (MEVM).

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Background: Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), also known as Forestier's disease, is a rheumatologic condition characterized by ossification of the spinal ligaments and tendons. Large anterior osteophytes are typically present in the lower cervical levels, while upper cervical ossification resulting in dysphagia is very rare.

Methods: Here, we presented a patient with Forestier's disease involving massive ossification of the anterior longitudinal ligament extending from C3 to C4 downward contributing to severe dysphagia.

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Maximal safe resection represents the gold standard for surgery of malignant brain tumors. As regards gross-total resection, accurate localization and precise delineation of the tumor margins are required. Intraoperative diagnostic imaging (Intra-Operative Magnetic Resonance-IOMR, Intra-Operative Computed Tomography-IOCT, Intra-Operative Ultrasound-IOUS) and dyes (fluorescence) have become relevant in brain tumor surgery, allowing for a more radical and safer tumor resection.

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Mechlorethamine (HN2) is an alkylating agent and sulfur mustard mimetic. Topical exposure to HN2 is associated with tissue blistering. Previous work in our laboratory has shown that ebselen (EB-1) possesses anti-vesicant, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and cytoprotective properties, both and .

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Background: Surgical decompression of the ulnar nerve (UN) is effective for treating cubital tunnel syndrome (CubTS). Nevertheless, the outcome is not always satisfying. Different surgical, clinical, and imaging findings have been claimed as outcome predictors, but there is no consensus in the literature.

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High-grade gliomas (HGGs) are the most frequently diagnosed primary brain tumors. Even though it has been demonstrated that combined surgical therapy, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy improve survival, HGGs still harbor a very poor prognosis and limited overall survival. Differently from other types of primary neoplasm, HGG manifests also as a neurological disease.

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Sulfur mustard (SM) is a potent vesicant. The lack of an effective antidote makes SM a continued threat to both military and civilian settings. A surrogate agent, namely mechlorethamine (HN2), was used here to mimic the toxicity of SM, and the main objective of this study was to demonstrate if selected organoselenium analogs could protect cultured A-431 skin cells from HN2 toxicity.

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A series of test compounds were evaluated for an ability to reduce the toxicity of the nitrogen mustard mechlorethamine (HN2) in vitro. The test compounds included resveratrol, pterostilbene, vitamin C, ebselen, ebselen diselenide, and ebselen-sulfur. Among them, ebselen demonstrated the highest degree of protection against HN2 toxicity.

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Vesicants are potent blistering agents. The prototype vesicant is sulphur mustard gas, first used in World War I, which still has no effective antidote. We used a mustard gas surrogate 2-chloroethyl ethyl sulphide (CEES) to study the ability of resveratrol (RES) and pterostilbene (PTS), two well-established stilbene antioxidants, ebselen (EB-1), an organoselenium compound, and three EB-1 analogues (EB-2, EB-3, and EB-4) to reduce CEES toxicity in human epidermoid carcinoma cells (A-431).

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Background: Trigeminal schwannomas are uncommon intracranial tumors. Extracranial trigeminal schwannomas in the infratemporal fossa are rare.

Methods: We present a case with a clinical history of facial pain.

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