Pedicle-screw-based dynamic implants may increase posterior intervertebral disc bulging during flexion.

Abstract Posterior disc bulging may lead to nerve root compression and radicular pain, and in extreme cases to a local pressure on the dural sac and thus to back pain. Compared to when standing, posterior disc bulging is increased during extension and decreased during flexion, in an uninstrumented spine. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of a pedicle-screw-based dynamic implant on posterior disc bulging.

Quantitative analysis of response to treatment with erlotinib in advanced non-small cell lung cancer using 18F-FDG and 3'-deoxy-3'-18F-fluorothymidine PET.

Unlabelled: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relevance for the prediction of clinical benefit of first-line treatment with erlotinib using different quantitative parameters for PET with both (18)F-FDG and 3'-deoxy-3'-(18)F-fluorothymidine ((18)F-FLT) in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Methods: Data were used from a prospective trial involving patients with untreated stage IV non-small cell lung cancer. (18)F-FDG PET and (18)F-FLT PET were performed before and 1 (early) and 6 (late) weeks after erlotinib treatment.

Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty versus turbostatic carbon-coated stents in infrapopliteal arteries: InPeria II trial.

Purpose: To determine the clinical outcome and the success of stent application for high-grade lesions of the infrapopliteal arteries compared with treatment with percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) in critical limb ischemia (CLI).

Materials And Methods: In this ethics board-approved randomized prospective study, PTA or stent application was performed on 131 lesions in 88 patients with CLI. The primary end points were clinical improvement after endovascular treatment and limb salvage rate.

Optimal stiffness of a pedicle-screw-based motion preservation implant for the lumbar spine.

Purpose: Pedicle-screw-based dynamic implants are intended to preserve intervertebral mobility while releasing certain spinal structures. The aim of the study was to determine the as yet unknown optimal stiffness value of the longitudinal rods that fulfils best these opposing tasks.

Methods: A finite element model of the lumbar spine was used which includes the posterior implant at level L4/5.

An enhanced and validated generic thoraco-lumbar spine model for prediction of muscle forces.

A direct measurement of the complete loads in the spine continues to remain elusive. Analytical musculoskeletal models to predict the internal loading conditions generally neglect or strongly simplify passive soft tissue structures. However, during large intervertebral motions, passive structures such as ligaments and the stiffness of the intervertebral discs are thought to play a critical role on the muscle forces required for equilibrium.

Which postures are most suitable in assessing spinal fusion using radiostereometric analysis?

Background: Up to now, plain radiographs are not well suited to assess spinal fusion. Radiostereometric analysis performed for two postures may deliver more reliable results. However, it is unknown, which postures are most suitable for this procedure.

Bifurcated endograft in aortoiliac type C and D lesions: long-term results.

Purpose: To report long-term outcome when using a bifurcated aortic endograft for treatment of aortoiliac occlusive disease (AIOD) in Trans Atlantic Inter Society Consensus (TASC) classification C and D patients.

Materials And Methods: Between May 2001 and May 2009, 14 patients (11 men, 3 women) with aortoiliac TASC C and D type lesions and a mean age of 59 years ± 10 (range 41-73 years) were treated using a bifurcated aortic endograft. Although these patients were young, all were considered at high surgical risk.

Measured loads on a vertebral body replacement during sitting.

Background Context: Sitting is frequently assumed to cause high spinal loads because people with sedentary work often suffer from low back pain. It is assumed that the posture while sitting, as well as several seat parameters, also affects the spinal loads.

Purpose: To measure the loads on a spinal implant for different upper body inclinations, backrest declinations, seat heights, types of seat, and arm positions.

Optimised loads for the simulation of axial rotation in the lumbar spine.

Simplified loading modes (pure moment, compressive force) are usually applied in the in vitro studies to simulate flexion-extension, lateral bending and axial rotation of the spine. The load magnitudes for axial rotation vary strongly in the literature. Therefore, the results of current investigations, e.

The role of a specialized approach for patients with diabetes, critical ischaemia and foot ulcers not previously considered for proactive management.

Aims: To analyse the outcome of the proactive management of patients with diabetes, critical limb ischaemia and foot ulcers using percutaneous transluminal angioplasty as the only vascular procedure and adjuvant conservative surgery when indicated.

Methods: A retrospective study of patients with diabetes included in our database who sought a second opinion in our unit and met the following criteria: foot ulcer and critical limb ischaemia in patients for whom any proactive vascular treatment had not previously been considered by other teams.

Results: Twenty patients underwent endovascular procedures.

A Dry EEG-System for Scientific Research and Brain-Computer Interfaces.

Although it ranks among the oldest tools in neuroscientific research, electroencephalography (EEG) still forms the method of choice in a wide variety of clinical and research applications. In the context of brain-computer interfacing (BCI), EEG recently has become a tool to enhance human-machine interaction. EEG could be employed in a wider range of environments, especially for the use of BCI systems in a clinical context or at the homes of patients.

Benchmarking of mutation diagnostics in clinical lung cancer specimens.

Treatment of EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer patients with the tyrosine kinase inhibitors erlotinib or gefitinib results in high response rates and prolonged progression-free survival. Despite the development of sensitive mutation detection approaches, a thorough validation of these in a clinical setting has so far been lacking. We performed, in a clinical setting, a systematic validation of dideoxy 'Sanger' sequencing and pyrosequencing against massively parallel sequencing as one of the most sensitive mutation detection technologies available.

In Situ X-Ray Scattering Studies of Poly(ε-caprolactone) Networks with Grafted Poly(ethylene glycol) Chains to Investigate Structural Changes during Dual- and Triple-Shape Effect.

The dual- and triple-shape effects of multiphase polymer networks that contain two crystallizable chain segments have been assessed in situ by combining X-ray measurements with thermomechanical investigations. The studied polymer, named CLEG, is a multiphase polymer network of crystallizable poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) with grafted poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) side chains. Wide-angle (WAXS) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements were combined with temperature-controlled in situ tensile testing experiments.

Endovascular treatment for pseudoaneurysms after surgical correction of aortic coarctation.

Late complications after surgical repair of aortic coarctation are not uncommon. Among these complications pseudoaneurysms are the most frequent complications, occurring between 3 and 38%. Reoperation in these patients is associated with high morbidity and mortality.

Blood-based gene expression signatures in non-small cell lung cancer.

Purpose: Blood-based surrogate markers would be attractive biomarkers for early detection, diagnosis, prognosis, and prediction of therapeutic outcome in cancer. Disease-associated gene expression signatures in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) have been described for several cancer types. However, RNA-stabilized whole blood-based technologies would be clinically more applicable and robust.

[Tyrosine kinase inhibitors in oncology].

Tyrosin kinase inhibitors are still are relatively new group of drugs in oncology. But in the past few years they have gained an increasing importance due to the major and long lasting clinical benefit they induce in a subgroup of tumor patients. This success of tyrosin kinase inhibitors is based on the exquisite importance of tyrosin kinases for growth and survival of tumor cells.

Clinical outcome with bevacizumab in patients with recurrent high-grade glioma treated outside clinical trials.

Background: Patients with recurrent high-grade glioma (HGG) have a poor prognosis and there is no defined standard of care. High levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expressed in HGG make the anti-VEGF monoclonal antibody bevacizumab (BEV) of particular interest.

Patients And Methods: In an ongoing registry data were collected from patients who have received BEV for the treatment of recurrent HGG.

A public data hub for benchmarking common brain-computer interface algorithms.

Methods of statistical machine learning have recently proven to be very useful in contemporary brain-computer interface (BCI) research based on the discrimination of electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns. Because of this, many research groups develop new algorithms for both feature extraction and classification. However, until now, no large-scale comparison of these algorithms has been accomplished due to the fact that little EEG data is publicly available.

Towards passive brain-computer interfaces: applying brain-computer interface technology to human-machine systems in general.

Cognitive monitoring is an approach utilizing realtime brain signal decoding (RBSD) for gaining information on the ongoing cognitive user state. In recent decades this approach has brought valuable insight into the cognition of an interacting human. Automated RBSD can be used to set up a brain-computer interface (BCI) providing a novel input modality for technical systems solely based on brain activity.

Early prediction of nonprogression in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer treated with erlotinib by using [(18)F]fluorodeoxyglucose and [(18)F]fluorothymidine positron emission tomography.

Purpose: Positron emission tomography (PET) with both 2'-deoxy-2'-[(18)F]fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) and 3'-[(18)F]fluoro-3'-deoxy-L-thymidine (FLT) was evaluated with respect to the accuracy of early prediction of nonprogression following erlotinib therapy, independent from epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutational status, in patients with previously untreated advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Patients And Methods: Thirty-four patients with untreated stage IV NSCLC were evaluated in this phase II trial. Changes in FDG and FLT uptake after 1 (early) and 6 (late) weeks of erlotinib treatment were compared with nonprogression measured by computed tomography after 6 weeks of treatment, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS).

Carotid artery stenting without angioplasty and cerebral protection: a single-center experience with up to 7 years' follow-up.

Background And Purpose: The use of cerebral protection during CAS in the treatment of carotid artery disease is matter of controversy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcome of CASWBAP in a large cohort of patients, with ≤7 years' follow-up.

Materials And Methods: Two hundred thirty-six patients with 255 symptomatic carotid stenoses and/or with high-risk-morphology plaques of >50% and asymptomatic plaques of >70% were prospectively identified.

[Stiffening effect of a transsacral fusion system for the lumbosacral junction. A probabilistic finite element analysis and sensitivity study].

The novel transsacral fusion system AxiALIF allows stabilization of the lumbosacral junction. The system consists of a screw with two different diameters. With additional facet screws or internal fixation devices 360° fusion can be achieved.

Endovascular treatment of the nutcracker syndrome: report of two cases.

The nutcracker syndrome (NS) is a rare condition characterized by the entrapment of the left renal vein (LRV) between the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) and the aorta. Clinically, it presents with flank pain, hematuria, and symptoms of pelvic venous congestion. Several surgical techniques have been described including left renal vein (LRV) transposition, autotransplantation, LRV bypass, superior mesenteric artery (SMA) transposition, gonadocaval bypass and nephrectomy.

Endovascular treatment for a thoracic-abdominal aortic aneurysm without fenestrations or branches.

We describe a case of a patient with a thoraco-abdominal aortic aneurysm, affecting the origin of the celiac trunk, with the particularity of the normal aortic diameter in the segment between superior mesenteric artery and both renal arteries. Endovascular treatment was performed with no fenestrated or branch endoprosthesis. The procedure was divided into two steps.