The discourse of dental hygiene practice in Canada.

Recently the discourse in Canada relating to dental hygiene practice has changed. While dentistry still exercises controlling power over the public's oral cavity, dental hygienists have made inroads through legislative changes. A description of Canadian dental hygiene practice is provided to set the stage for a discussion about current discourse in the dental hygiene profession.

Repair of recurrent aneurysm after aortic valve and ascending aortic replacement.

The standard approach for recurrent aortic root problems has been a composite graft placement. This is a description of a case where a simplified technique was used. The new aortic graft was sutured to the sewing ring of a previously placed, well-seated aortic prosthesis.

Biomonitoring of continuous microbial community adaptation towards more efficient phenol-degradation in a fed-batch bioreactor.

The anaerobic degradation of phenol was studied in a fed-batch culture. Nitrate was added as electron acceptor and phenol was provided three times, to a final concentration of 200 mg/l. Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and terminal fraction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) were used and compared in order to monitor the microbial succession in the reactor.

Establishing and using a local/regional cardiac surgery database.

Background: In 1993, the Minnesota Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the Minnesota Cardiac Surgery Database were organized in response to a third-party payer demand for data about practice protocols and patient outcomes. It has matured to an active organization of 46 cardiothoracic surgeons, 14 institutions, and more than 7,000 patients who have undergone coronary artery bypass grafting.

Methods: Data are validated for completeness and accuracy through a statewide auditing process.

Repair of aortoesophageal fistula after aortic grafting.

This report describes repair of an aortoesophageal fistula caused by a previously placed thoracic aortic graft. The diagnosis was made by esophagoscopy. The repair consisted of femoral-to-femoral cardiopulmonary bypass, excision of the old graft, placement of a new graft, esophagectomy, cervical esophagostomy, gastrostomy, and later reconstruction by cervical esophagogastrostomy.