The impact of arachnoid structures on skull-base meningioma surgical management: a radiological analysis and narrative review.

The presence of intact arachnoid membranes between skull base meningiomas and critical neurovascular structures is crucial for predicting surgical outcomes, understanding tumor development and growth, and planning the feasibility of tumor resection or the need for adjuvant treatments. While neurosurgeons often utilize the subarachnoid cisterns to enhance access to these tumors and facilitate their removal, a comprehensive review aimed at health professionals involved in the diagnosis and treatment of this complex pathology, including radiologists, neurologists, oncologists, ophthalmologists, and neurosurgeons is still lacking. This study aims to summarize the interaction between skull base meningiomas, subarachnoid cisterns, and arachnoid membranes, emphasizing their significance in both the diagnosis and treatment of this pathology.

Enhancing Patient Comprehension in Skull-Base Meningioma Surgery through 3D Volumetric Reconstructions: A Cost-Effective Approach.

Background: Understanding complex neurosurgical procedures and diseases, such as skull-base meningiomas, is challenging for patients due to the intricate anatomy and the involvement of critical neurovascular structures. Enhanced patient comprehension is crucial for satisfaction and improved clinical outcomes. Patient-specific 3D models have demonstrated benefits in patient education, though they are costly and time-intensive to produce.

Insights into the environmental benefits of using apple pomace for biosorption of lead from contaminated water.

The apple processing industry generates large quantities of organic waste, presenting a major source of organic contamination. Consequently, finding an effective solution for valorizing this waste has become a pressing issue. This study aims to address two key concerns: (i) solving an agricultural problem by efficiently using agri-food residue, and (ii) removing lead, an extremely toxic element, from contaminated waters to mitigate environmental pollution.

Deciphering the vascular labyrinth: role of microRNAs and candidate gene SNPs in brain AVM development - literature review.

: Brain arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are a relatively infrequent vascular pathology of unknown etiology that, despite their rarity, cause the highest number of hemorrhagic strokes under the age of 30 years. They pose a challenge to all forms of treatment due to their variable morphology, location, size, and, last but not least, evolving nature. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNA strands that may suppress the expression of target genes by binding completely or partially to their complementary sequences.

Gender Differences in the Self-assessment of Quality of Life and Disability After Spinal Fusion for Chronic Low Back Pain at a Neurosurgical Center in Eastern Europe.

Objective: Mechanical alterations of the spine, which can cause chronic low back pain (LBP), are a frequent indication for spinal fusion. Studies have shown differences between genders in patients' evaluations of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) after spinal procedures, but results have been conflicting, and some authors have suggested that cultural variation could explain these discrepancies. The objectives of this study were to determine the influence that gender plays on HRQoL, disability, and the correlation between the 2 in people undergoing spinal fusion for chronic LBP at a neurosurgical centre in Eastern Europe.

Influence of Gender on Health-Related Quality of Life and Disability at 1 Year After Surgery for Thoracolumbar Burst Fractures.

Study Design: Case series.

Objective: Thoracolumbar burst fractures (TLBF) are the most frequent type of spinal fractures. Approximately half of the patients are neurologically intact and their treatment is still debatable.

Cutaneous wound healing using polymeric surgical dressings based on chitosan, sodium hyaluronate and resveratrol. A preclinical experimental study.

Wound healing is a complex and dynamic process that involves modifying the wound environment depending on the patient's health status. Scar formation depends on many factors that influence wound healing, are important to bear in mind because most of the negative factors involved can be stopped by implementing an adequate treatment. The consensus in wound therapy recommends dressings that should keep a moist and alkaline environment thus creating a protective barrier against mechanical stress and secondary infections, in view of promoting granulation.

Health-related quality of life in patients undergoing lumbar total disc replacement: A comparison with the general population.

Objectives: In up to half of the cases, low back pain (LBP) is thought to be related to a degeneration of the lumbar disc. Lumbar total disc replacement (LTDR) emerged as an alternative to fusion, but its use and indications are still subject to debate. The purpose of this paper was to compare Health-related Quality of life (HRQOL) in patients undergoing LTDR for one or two-level degenerative disc disease (DDD) with the paired age and gender general population values and to assess functional disability and residual pain at one year after the surgical procedure.

Fluorescein Angiography in Intracranial Aneurysm Surgery: A Helpful Method to Evaluate the Security of Clipping and Observe Blood Flow.

Background: In cerebral aneurysm surgery, various tools are used to evaluate blood flow, including Doppler ultrasonography, conventional cerebral angiography, and electrophysiological monitoring. Fluorescein and indocyanine green are widely used in vascular and central nervous system tumor neurosurgery; however, their routine utilization in aneurysmal surgery is uncommon, despite the fact that they allow direct visualization of blood flow after aneurysmal sac occlusion, enabling the observation of vessel permeability and the effectiveness of aneurysmal obliteration. We report our initial experience using fluorescein video angiography as a control measure for proper clip placement and control of blood flow in aneurysm surgery, and review the relevant literature.

Investigating motor imagery tasks by their neural effects - A case study.

Motor imagery, one of the first investigated neural process for Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) still provides a great challenge nowadays. Aiming a better and more accurate control, multiple researches have been conducted by the scientific community. Nevertheless, there is still no robust and confident application developed.

Recording system and data fusion algorithm for enhancing the estimation of the respiratory rate from photoplethysmogram.

The respiratory rate is a vital parameter that can provide valuable information about the health condition of a patient. The extraction of respiratory information from photoplethysmographic signal (PPG) was actually encouraged by the reported results, our main goal being to obtain accurate respiratory rate estimation from the PPG signal. We developed a fusion algorithm that identifies the best derived respiratory signals, from which is possible to extract the respiratory rate; based on these, a global respiratory rate is computed using the proposed fusion algorithm.

Selenium contaminated waters: An overview of analytical methods, treatment options and recent advances in sorption methods.

Selenium is an essential trace element for many organisms, including humans, but it is bioaccumulative and toxic at higher than homeostatic levels. Both selenium deficiency and toxicity are problems around the world. Mines, coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and agriculture are important examples of anthropogenic sources, generating contaminated waters and wastewaters.

Arsenic and antimony in water and wastewater: overview of removal techniques with special reference to latest advances in adsorption.

Arsenic and antimony are metalloids, naturally present in the environment but also introduced by human activities. Both elements are toxic and carcinogenic, and their removal from water is of unquestionable importance. The present article begins with an overview of As and Sb chemistry, distribution and toxicity, which are relevant aspects to understand and develop remediation techniques.

Sneddon syndrome: rare disease or under diagnosed clinical entity? Review of the literature related to a clinical case.

Sneddon syndrome is defined by the association of livedo racemosa and recurrent cerebrovascular ischemic lesions. The annual incidence is 4/1,000,000. This syndrome particularly affects young women, some reports suggesting a family predisposition.

Fetal ECG extraction from abdominal signals: a review on suppression of fundamental power line interference component and its harmonics.

Interference of power line (PLI) (fundamental frequency and its harmonics) is usually present in biopotential measurements. Despite all countermeasures, the PLI still corrupts physiological signals, for example, electromyograms (EMG), electroencephalograms (EEG), and electrocardiograms (ECG). When analyzing the fetal ECG (fECG) recorded on the maternal abdomen, the PLI represents a particular strong noise component, being sometimes 10 times greater than the fECG signal, and thus impairing the extraction of any useful information regarding the fetal health state.

Monitoring the fetal heart rate variations by means of time-variant multivariate analysis.

The analysis of the fetal heart rate (fHR) is important in detecting the fetal distress related with hypoxic episodes, noticed sometimes during the uterine activity, which can severely affect the fetus. Occasional synchrony between the fHR and the maternal heart rate (mHR) was reported and the mHR shows some variations during pregnancy and labor, especially when the contractions are very strong. The current study proposes a new strategy to investigate the relations between the fHR, the mHR and the uterine activity, by applying the time-variant Partial Directed Coherence (tvPDC).

Infective endocarditis--a forgotten cause for heart insufficiency in elderly. Case report.

Right heart infective endocarditis in an elderly patient with no previous known risk factors is a very rare situation (even if subacute infective endocarditis has the same chance of occurrence at either a young person, or an elderly patient). We present the case of a 75-years old patient, with no previous cardiac history, addressed to our clinic with nonspecific septic symptoms associated with an edematous syndrome. The patient was treated for right heart valve infective endocarditis; a particularity may be the fact not all Duke criteria were respected.

Comparative corrosion study of Ti-Ta alloys for dental applications.

Besides other important material features, the corrosion parameters and corrosion products are responsible for limiting the biocompatibility of metallic materials, and can produce undesirable reactions in implant-adjacent and/or more distant tissues. Titanium and some of its alloys are known as being the most biocompatible metallic materials due to their high strength, low modulus, high corrosion resistance in biological media, etc. More recently, Ti-Ta alloys have been developed, and these are expected to become more promising candidates for biomedical and dental applications than commercially pure Ti, Ti-6Al-4V or Ti-6Al-7Nb alloy.

The event synchronous canceller algorithm removes maternal ECG from abdominal signals without affecting the fetal ECG.

Fetal monitoring using abdominally recorded signals (ADS) allows physicians to detect occurring changes in the well-being state of the fetus from the beginning of pregnancy. Mainly based on the fetal electrocardiogram (fECG), it provides the long-term fetal heart rate (fHR) and assessment of the fetal QRS morphology. But the fECG component in ADS is obscured by the maternal ECG (mECG), thus removal of the mECG from ADS improves fECG analysis.

Atrial fibrillation in elderly: particularities of management.

Atrial fibrillation (AF), a common and serious cardiac rhythm disturbance, is responsible for substantial morbidity and mortality in the population. Currently about 2.3 million people in the US are diagnosed with AF and, based of the US census, this number is expected to rise to 5.

[Heart insufficiency in elderly--new dimensions of the problem].

The 21st century's demographic and epidemiologic perspectives suggest an absolute and percentual increment of elderly population. In the same time the prevalence of heart insufficiency increases with advanced age, which transforms heart failure in a true challenge for health insurance system. This new dimension of the problem resides in the increment of heart insufficiency's prevalence and in the high costs of medical care of these patients.

Comparison and evaluation of existing methods for the extraction of low amplitude electrocardiographic signals: a possible approach to transabdominal fetal ECG.

Analysis of the fetal ECG (fECG) allows physicians to detect changes in the well-being state of the fetus. But when assessing the fECG through the abdominal signals (ADS), its very low amplitude causes a problem, as the fECG representation in the ADS is buried in a mixture of other signals with stronger energy. Different methods have been proposed in the past to extract the transabdominal fECG for instantaneous fetal heart rate (fHR) computation; four representatives of them are selected for an accurate comparison of their performance in fECG extraction and in fHR estimation.

Abdominal fetal ECG enhancement by event synchronous canceller.

Abdominal signals (ADS) recorded from pregnant women represent an important tool for monitoring the fetal heart rate (FHR) variability and the well-being state of the fetus, mainly because it has the advantage of being noninvasive. Thus, no risk is given during recording either for the mother or for the fetus, but complex signal processing steps are necessary, mainly due to the presence of the maternal ECG in the ADS, in order to achieve a clean fetal electrocardiogram (fECG). The paper presents an improved application of the Event Synchronous Canceller (ESC) for maternal electrocardiogram (mECG) suppression.