A comparison between endoscopic and microscopic approaches for stapes surgery: experience of a tertiary referral center.

Purpose: Otosclerosis is a common ear disease causing ankylosis of the stapedio-vestibular joint and conductive hearing loss. Stapedoplasty is the most advisable surgical solution. The restoration of hearing depends on the condition of the patient and the surgery itself.

Pediatric Sinogenic Subdural Empyema: Case Report and Operative Technique.

Intracranial complications of sinusitis in the pediatric age are rare but potentially life threatening. They usually occur with nonspecific symptoms such as headache, fever, nausea and vomiting rather than a classic neurological presentation, but they may evolve in few hours, leading to significant morbidity with permanent brain damage and sometimes to death. For this reason, early diagnosis and prompt treatment are essential.

Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography to Estimate Early Retinal Blood Flow Changes after Uncomplicated Cataract Surgery.

Background: To investigate macular microvascular changes after uncomplicated phacoemulsification surgery according to the cataract severity grade. Methods: Retrospective, cross-sectional study involving 23 eyes of 23 patients who underwent elective cataract extraction. All patients underwent routine ophthalmologic examination, including optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) at baseline (preoperative visit, T0) and seven days postoperatively (T7).

Sarcopenic Dysphagia, Malnutrition, and Oral Frailty in Elderly: A Comprehensive Review.

Frailty is a highly prevalent condition in the elderly that has been increasingly considered as a crucial public health issue, due to the strict correlation with a higher risk of fragility fractures, hospitalization, and mortality. Among the age-related diseases, sarcopenia and dysphagia are two common pathological conditions in frail older people and could coexist leading to dehydration and malnutrition in these subjects. "Sarcopenic dysphagia" is a complex condition characterized by deglutition impairment due to the loss of mass and strength of swallowing muscles and might be also related to poor oral health status.

Fourth-generation endovascular stent-graft: the concept of laminar flow.

The stent graft is a noncompliant system inserted in a semi-compliant structure. This generates a mismatch. The media also shows a composite movement and is oriented 45° resulting in an arterial spiral movement that contributes to maintaining the clockwise orientation of laminar flow with an 80° deflection.

Application of fractal analysis to mammography.

We report on a morphological study of 192 breast masses as seen in mammograms, with the aim of discrimination between benign masses and malignant tumors. From the contour of each mass, we computed the fractal dimension (FD) and a few shape factors, including compactness, fractional concavity, and spiculation index. We calculated FD using four different methods: the ruler and box-counting methods applied to each 2-dimensional (2D) contour and its 1-dimensional signature.

Endovascular treatment of traumatic descending aortic lesions: nine years of experience.

Aortic injury from sudden deceleration is the most common traumatic condition of the thoracic aorta encountered clinically. Open surgical repair is still associated today with a high-risk setting. Recently, stent-graft treatment is emerging as an alternative to conventional surgery due to its less traumatic nature in patients affected by traumatic aortic lesions, especially in concomitance with multiple associated lesions.

Percutaneous treatment of staghorn stones: a retrospective case-control study with evaluation of single vs multiple access to the kidney.

Staghorn stones have been treated, up to 30 years ago, with open surgery. With the introduction of percutaneous procedure (PNL) and the use of shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) together with flexible instrumentation and Holmium Laser lithotripsy the indication for open surgery is actually very limited. On the other hand conservative treatment of staghorn calculi will result in a complete destruction of the kidney associated to a mortality rate up to 30%.

Bilateral same session ureteroscopy: safety and efficacy.

Actually ureteroscopy represents the therapy of choice for the treatment of ureteric stones. In the case of bilateral synchronous ureteric calculi the options are between a staged or a synchronous procedure; the last would potentially reduce costs and the need for a second anesthetic in comparison with a staged procedure. We reviewed our experience with bilateral same session ureteroscopy and compared with staged bilateral or unilateral procedure in the same series.

Recombinant plasminogen activator therapy for cerebral vein thrombosis in a child carrier of prothrombin gene mutation.

Venous thrombosis of transverse and sigmoid sinuses was diagnosed in a 3-year-old child who is a carrier of the G20210A prothrombin gene mutation. Recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) treatment was started 9 days following the onset of neurologic signs. Nine days of rt-PA therapy completely dissolved the thrombus.

The growth hormone response to hexarelin in patients with Prader-Willi syndrome.

Hexarelin (Hex) is a synthetic hexapeptide with potent GH-releasing activity in both animals and men. Aim of this study was to evaluate the GH response to a maximal dose of Hex and GH-releasing hormone (GHRH) in a group of patients with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). Seven patients (4 boys and 3 girls, age 2.

Pregnancy in patients with Turner's syndrome: six new cases and review of literature.

Pregnancy in women with Turner's syndrome (TS) is an exceptional event, but is possible in 2% of cases. It can occur in patients with structural anomalies of the X chromosomes in which the Xq13-q26 region, containing the genes that are thought to control ovarian function, is spared; or in patients with a mosaic karyotype containing an 46,XX cell line, which preserves ovarian function. In our Centre we observed six cases of women with Turner's syndrome conceiving.

Trisomy 9 mosaicism syndrome. A case report and review of the literature.

The authors report on a case of trisomy 9 mosaicism syndrome, a rare chromosome abnormality. The common features of this syndrome are growth and mental retardation, low-set malformed ears, wide sutures and fontanelles, bulbous nose, short palpebral fissures, micrognathia, microphthalmia and enophthalmos, abnormal hands and feet, hip dislocation, joint limitation, cardiovascular defects and urogenital abnormalities. Our patient presented some unusual characteristics, such as 13 pairs of ribs, a vertebral malformation, a hemivertebra and a Dandy-Walker syndrome.

[The usefulness of the skeleton in the diagnosis of malformation].

Most malformation syndromes (70%) show evidence of skeletal anomalies, mainly in the vertebral bodies and in the bony segments of the limbs. This explains the importance of studying the skeleton when faced with any multi-malformation syndrome, using techniques like CT, MRI, echography and densitometry as well as standard radiology. To increase the quantity of information available for diagnostic purposes it would be profitable to create a data bank containing all the possible radiological findings encountered in the numerous multi-malformation syndromes.