Socioeconomic status and wait times for pediatric surgery in Canada.

Objectives: Even in a publicly funded health care system, access to care may be related to socioeconomic status (SES). For children, delays in surgical procedures can have profound functional, social, and psychological effects with lifelong impact. The purpose of this study was to determine whether SES was related to meeting surgical wait time access targets for children.

Bupropion and Escitalopram During Lactation.

Objective: To report a case of seizure-like symptoms in an infant exposed to bupropion and escitalopram through breastfeeding.

Case Summary: A 6.5-month-old female infant, breastfed by a mother treated with bupropion XL 150 mg/d and escitalopram 10 mg/d for depression, presented to our hospital with severe emesis and tonic seizure-like symptoms.

Rat-derived processed nerve allografts support more axon regeneration in rat than human-derived processed nerve xenografts.

Processed nerve allografts are increasingly used as "off the shelf" nerve replacements for surgically bridging nerve gaps. Benchmarking the regenerative capacity of a commercially available human-derived nerve or xenograft in a rat nerve injury model would provide a convenient platform for future studies seeking to modify the processed nerve graft. Human and rat processed nerve grafts were used to bridge a 14 mm defect in a Sprague-Dawley rat sciatic nerve.

Fibrin gels containing GDNF microspheres increase axonal regeneration after delayed peripheral nerve repair.

Aim: Recovery following nerve transection declines when target reconnection is delayed for prolonged periods. GDNF has previously been shown to promote motor axon regeneration following delayed nerve repair.

Materials & Methods: We constructed delivery systems using fibrin gels containing free GDNF or poly(lactide-co-glycolide) microspheres with GDNF.

Experimental and clinical evidence for use of decellularized nerve allografts in peripheral nerve gap reconstruction.

Despite the inherent capability for axonal regeneration, recovery following severe peripheral nerve injury remains unpredictable and often very poor. Surgeons typically use autologous nerve grafts taken from the patient's own body to bridge long nerve gaps. However, the amount of suitable nerve available from a given patient is limited, and using autologous grafts leaves the patient with scars, numbness, and other forms of donor-site morbidity.

Validation of spontaneous assessment of baroreceptor reflex sensitivity and its relation to heart rate variability in the ovine fetus pre- and near-term.

Assessment of baroreceptor reflex sensitivity (BRS) in the ovine fetus provides insight into autonomic cardiovascular regulation. Currently, assessment of BRS relies on vasoactive drugs, but this approach is limited by feasibility issues and by the nonphysiologic nature of the stimulus. Thus we aimed to validate the method of spontaneous BRS assessment against the reference method of using vasoactive drugs in preterm (0.