Vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty: friends or foes?

Purpose: This paper aims to compare vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty by illustrating the two techniques, analysing the results and discussing the indications in relation to the type of fracture.

Materials And Methods: Vertebroplasty was performed on 805 vertebral bodies in 485 patients affected by osteoporosis (310), metastasis (160) and vertebral haemangioma (15). The approach was unipedicular in 365 patients and bipedicular in 120 patients.

[Bacterial endocarditis in an infectious diseases department: our experience].

The infective endocarditis remains a serious disease. The microbiologic, immunologic and technologic researches have contributed to the diagnosis and cure of the disease. The Authors report the results on ten cases of infective endocarditis that came to their observation in the last five years.

[Importance of ischemic heart disease in patients with carotid arteriosclerosis and lower extremity arteriopathy. Results of a prospective study].

Objectives: Myocardial ischemia (MI) is a frequent cause of morbility and mortality in patients with carotid atherosclerosis (CA) independently of the symptomatology. The objective of our study was the identification of MI through clinical-history or as revealed by the stress test.

Methods: The study considered a consecutive series of patients with significant CA (stenosis > or = 50%), studied with echo-B mode and Doppler velocity scans chosen from all patients in the diagnostic vascular cerebral laboratory, between May 1992 and January 1994, for a non invasive study of neck arteries.

Thrombolysis in ischemic stroke: evaluation of operative difficulties.

A few on-going international trials aim to investigate the effectiveness of early fibrinolytic treatment for ischaemic stroke to assist cerebral reperfusion. This operative strategy depends on clinical parameters such as haemorrhagic lesions, coma, pre-existent impairment and disability, and the efficiency of the sanitary organization receiving the patients (availability of CT scan, hospitalization within 6 h of onset of symptoms). We report data on the operative efficiency of a Regional Hospital Centre without a stroke unit: we observe that 142 patients did not receive early stroke treatment because of organizational problems whose prevalence exceeded the incidence of theoretical contraindications to fibrinolytic use.