Anterior cervical fusion with tantalum implant: a prospective randomized controlled study.

Study Design: A prospective randomized controlled study was carried out.

Objective: To determine the effectiveness and safety of a tantalum implant in achieving anterior cervical fusion following 1-level discectomy as treatment of degenerative cervical disc disease with radiculopathy.

Summary Of Background Data: The gold standard for the treatment of degenerative cervical disc disease could not be already identified.

A prospective randomized study of unilateral versus bilateral instrumented posterolateral lumbar fusion in degenerative spondylolisthesis.

Study Design: Prospective randomized study on 82 patients with degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis, having undergone posterolateral fusion with bilateral or unilateral instrumentation.

Objective: To determine the effectiveness of unilateral pedicle instrumentation in clinical outcome and rate of union in comparison with the classic bilateral system.

Summary Of Background Data: Instrumentation has proved to have advantages and disadvantages related to its rigidity.

Hoffa's fat pad resection in total knee arthroplasty.

The authors have studied the consequences of resection of Hoffa's fat pad during total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Sixty eight patients undergoing primary TKA were randomised to have Hoffa's fat pad either resected or preserved. Biopsy specimens of Hoffa's fat pad were taken for pathological study in all patients.

2-Methyl-3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydrogenase (MHBD) deficiency: an X-linked inborn error of isoleucine metabolism that may mimic a mitochondrial disease.

We describe three patients, from two Spanish families, with 2-methyl-3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydrogenase (MHBD) deficiency, a recently described X-linked neurodegenerative inborn error of isoleucine metabolism. Two of them are males with severe lactic acidosis suggestive of a mitochondrial encephalopathy, and the third is a female who was less severely affected, suggesting skewed X-inactivation. Molecular studies revealed a new missense mutation, 740A-->G, in one family and a previously described mutation, 388C-->T, in the other, causing the amino acid substitutions N247S and R130C, respectively.

Uremic tumoral calcinosis of the foot mimicking infection.

Uremic tumoral calcinosis is an uncommon, benign condition characterized by slow-growing calcified periarticular soft tissue masses of varying size. We describe two patients with chronic renal failure on hemodialysis presenting uremic tumoral calcinosis, one in the fifth toe of the right foot and the other in the dorsum of the left foot between the first and second metatarsals. Excision of the calcic masses and parathyroidectomy were successfully performed in both patients.