Simplified treatment of chronic scalp wounds with exposed skull.

Background: Exposed cranial bone can present a considerable challenge to the reconstructive surgeon. Removal of the outer cortex of exposed skull bone has proven effective in the management of complex scalp wounds for which traditional reconstruction efforts were limited.

Objective: To demonstrate a simplified approach for management of scalp wounds with exposed skull.

Anterior Ear Reconstruction with the Posterior Pull-through Flap.

Background: Defects of the central ear after skin cancer removal remain a common problem for the reconstructive surgeon. The experience with a one-stage, postauricular, skin-island flap passed through the cartilage to reconstruct ear defects is reported.

Methods: Patients with an intact ear helix and an anterior full-thickness defect (cartilage defects included) were reconstructed with a skin-island flap based on posterior subcutaneous tissue deep to the flap base.

A 12-year long-term retrospective analysis of the use of radiofrequency nerve ablation for the treatment of neurogenic heel pain.

The authors discuss their rationale for the use of radiofrequency nerve ablation (RFNA) in the treatment of chronic neurogenic heel pain. Patients treated for plantar fasciitis who fail to improve after conservative and/ or surgical treatment should be reevaluated for a coexistent nerve entrapment. The results of a retrospective study of 82 patients who have undergone RFNA are presented.

18F-FDG PET/CT of transitional cell carcinoma.

Objective: The objective of this article is to provide a practical illustrated review of PET/CT in the imaging evaluation of transitional cell carcinoma.

Conclusion: Local evaluation of the primary tumor in patients with transitional cell carcinoma on PET is often limited by the obscuring effect of excreted FDG, but assessment of metabolic activity may still be possible through close correlation with CT images. PET/CT may also be helpful in the detection of disease outside the bladder at nodal or more distant sites and in the assessment of recurrent disease.

Pregnancy in chronic renal failure: a novel cause of theca lutein cysts at MRI.

We describe the MRI findings of bilateral ovarian theca lutein cysts in a pregnant patient with chronic renal failure. The recognition that pregnancy in chronic renal failure may result in theca lutein cysts, presumably due to excessive serum beta human chorionic gonadotropins (hCGs) secondary to impaired renal excretion, expands the differential diagnosis for this MRI appearance, in addition to the usual considerations of gestational trophoblastic disease, multiple gestation, and ovarian hyperstimulation.