Rejected

Chronic relapsing inflammatory optic neuropathy (CRION) is a form of recurrent, isolated, subacute optic neuropathy. A 33-year-old female presented at an outpatient clinic with a pain-ful reduction of vision in the left eye that had developed 10 days earlier. The patient provided a background history of 5 similar attacks over the past 5 years. CRION was diagnosed following ophthalmological and imaging examinations, which revealed optic neuritis without demye-lination. The patient was successfully treated with steroids. The early detection of CRION is important because of the associated risk of blindness if CRION is treated inappropriately.

Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) can be combined with tumors of the cerebellopontine angle (CPA). The optimal surgical management in these cases depends on the anatomical relationship of the trigeminal nerve root (TNR) with tumors and vessels. The purpose of this study is to evaluate variants of the anatomical relationship between the TNR and the surrounding structures as well as to analyze the results of using various surgical techniques for treatment of TN in CPA tumors.

This study sought to determine the long-term outcomes of catheter ablation (CA) of ventricular tachycardia (VT) in a series of patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) without background implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy.

Neuropathic pain is a common complication of diabetes mellitus (DM). Patients may complain of several neuropathic symptoms including impaired peripheral sensation, numbness, tingling, burning, and pain. Because these symptoms may cross with symptoms of vitamin D deficiency, we hypothesized that neuropathic pain and vitamin D deficiency may be associated in patients with type 2 DM.

The impact of patient ethnicity on healthcare delivery is well documented. In this study of children who had undergone open abdominal or pelvic surgery for tumor resection, we sought to compare the use of epidural analgesia or intraoperative blood transfusions between Caucasian and non-Caucasian children.

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is one of the most frequent gastrointestinal alterations in the United States. Medication induced AP has been undervalued in the surgical environment as etiologic entity of necrohemorragic pancreatitis (NHP). A case of NHP induced by valproic acid (VA) is presented, and an exclusion diagnostic algorithm is proposed.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the possibility of using and the effectiveness of CO and diode lasers in the microsurgery of the vestibular larynx. 85 surgical interventions were performed (using CO laser – 45, diode – 40) on the vestibular larynx of 52 patients (papillomatosis, cicatricial stenosis, cysts, hyperplastic laryngitis, initial stage of laryngeal cancer). The complications, duration of the intervention and inflammatory changes after the operation were assessed. In 3 (3.5%) cases, the use of CO laser was complicated by bleeding. The duration of the intervention with the use of a CO laser averaged 24±5.6 minutes, with a diode laser 30±5.4 minutes (p<0.05). In patients with a diode laser, edema, mucosal congestion, fibrin and pain were significantly longer than patients after using a CO laser (p<0.05). Thus, the use of CO laser in the surgical treatment of the vestibular laryngeal region occurs with less time, a less prolonged inflammatory response, but in some cases requires additional methods of hemostasis.

Human sensory transmission from limbs to brain crosses and ascends through the spinal cord. Yet, descriptions exist of ipsilateral sensory transmission as well as transmission after spinal cord transection. To elucidate a novel ipsilateral cutaneous pathway, we measured facial perfusion following painfully-cold water foot immersion in 10 complete spinal cord-injured patients, 10 healthy humans before and after lower thigh capsaicin C-fiber cutaneous conduction blockade, and 10 warm-immersed healthy participants. As in healthy volunteers, ipsilateral facial perfusion in spinal cord injured patients increased significantly. Capsaicin resulted in contralateral increase in perfusion, but only following cold immersion and not in 2 spinal cord-injured patients who underwent capsaicin administration. Supported by skin biopsy results from a healthy participant, we speculate that the pathway involves peripheral C-fiber cross-talk, partially bypassing the cord. This might also explain referred itch and jogger's migraine and it is possible that it may be amenable to training spinal-injured patients to recognize lower limb sensory stimuli.

In this study we hypothesized that the alleviation of neurological symptoms long after internal carotid artery (ICA) stenting may be related to sustained improvement of cerebral perfusion. Thirty-four subjects (F/M; 15/19) with >70% stenosis of a single internal carotid artery and neurological symptoms, who underwent a carotid artery stenting procedure, were studied. Brain computed tomography perfusion (CTP) imaging was performed before and 3 years after ICA stenting. The following relative variables were compared: cerebral blood flow (rCBF), cerebral blood volume (rCBV), mean transit time (rMTT), time to peak (rTTP), and permeability surface area product (rPS). A survey also was conducted to compare the patients' clinical symptoms. Overall, we found that a trend toward rMTT decline was the only persisting change after ICA stenting. We then stratified the patients into the subgroups of <2%, 2-5%, and > 5% rMTT decline and found that those with a rMTT decline >2% reported a prominent reduction in subjective clinical symptoms such as headache, dizziness, tinnitus, blurred vision, transient blindness, a sense of gravity of the head, and pain in the eyeballs. We conclude that a shortened mean rMTT, likely reflecting improved cerebral microcirculation, underlies the improvement of neurological symptoms in patients with ICA stenosis.

The epidural dexmedetomidine combined with ropivacaine has been successfully used for labor analgesia. We compared the effects of dexmedetomidine and sufentanil as adjuvants to local anesthetic for epidural labor analgesia.