Plasma radio-frequency-based diskectomy for treatment of cervical herniated nucleus pulposus: feasibility, safety, and preliminary clinical results.

Background And Purpose: Several techniques, including chymopapain, mechanical aspiration, laser-based disk decompression, and endoscopic keyhole surgery, have been proposed as minimally invasive alternatives to fusion for treating cervical disk herniation, though none has gained wide acceptance. The purpose of this study was to assess feasibility, safety, and preliminary clinical results of percutaneous plasma-mediated radio-frequency-based diskectomy for cervical disk herniation.

Methods: Patients (N = 55) with cervical soft disk protrusion were treated over a 29-month period.

Angioplasty and stenting of the cervical carotid bifurcation under filter protection: a prospective study in a series of 53 patients.

The aim of this study is to assess safety, reliability, ease of use and usefulness of filter protection devices during angioplasty and stenting of stenotic lesions of the cervical carotid bifurcation. Over a period of 42 months, 53 patients harboring a cervical carotid bifurcation stenotic lesion were treated, by angioplasty and/or stenting using filter protection devices of different kinds. The stenosis was atherosclerotic in 48 cases, post-surgical in four and post-radiation in one case.

Carotid endarterectomy: a new technique replacing internal shunts.

Background: Carotid endarterectomy has been reported to increase the time free from cerebral ischemic events in both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients with a high grade of stenosis of the internal carotid artery. In cases in whom the compensatory circulation during the carotid clamp time is not sufficient, the use of intraluminal shunts has been proposed. However, the use of intraluminal shunts present several problems, such as the technical difficulties in positioning the shunt, the variability of time requested for the placement, the inconstancy of the blood flow during surgery, and the need to clamp off the carotid to introduce and remove the shunt.

Subependymoma of the spinal cord: case report and review of the literature.

Spinal cord subependymoma is a rare tumour with only 39 reported cases in the literature. The authors report a further case of this neoplasm in a 53 year old man with a progressive paraparesis, paraesthesias of the lower limbs and sphincter disturbance. The tumour was partly removed, without progression 5 years after surgery.