We’ve all heard the expression, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Passing a kidney stone would qualify for one of life’s “lemons,” but did you know that drinking lemonade has been shown to prevent them?
According to a study conducted at Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), non-invasive coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA) is a cost-effective alternative to invasive cardiac catheterization in the care of patients who have positive stress test results but a less than 50 percent chance of actually having significant coronary artery disease (CAD).
Federal approval for an alternative therapy to heart transplantation led to a new lease on life for a UT Southwestern Medical Center patient who suffered from heart failure for nearly a decade.
The use of platelet rich plasma (PRP) following tooth removal appears to speed healing and bone formation. When a tooth is removed, poor healing can lead to excessive bone loss in the jaw that can delay tooth replacement, require costly reconstructive surgery, or even be impossible to fix, according to the authors. “Patients and clinicians could benefit if a cost-effective, simple technique were available that decreased bone-healing time and increased the predictability of favorable results,” they write.
The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) today announced its support of recent policy changes by Aetna Inc. and United Healthcare. The national health insurance giants will now cover laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, a newer method of bariatric surgery that is becoming increasingly popular as a treatment for morbid obesity.
A new study of almost 700 patients from The Mount Sinai Medical Center shows that prostate cancer patients who had robotically assisted prostatectomy enjoyed significant benefits over patients who had a traditional open radical prostatectomy, including decreased surgical and recovery time, less blood loss during surgery and significantly shorter hospital stays.
A new technique using tissue from those below-the-waist “love handles” improves cosmetic breast reconstruction in slim, athletic cancer patients without adequate fat sources elsewhere, a small Johns Hopkins study has found. The method also turns out to be less complicated than other options for surgeons as well, the research shows.
A new UCLA study compares the safety and efficacy of heart bypass surgery to angioplasty with drug-eluting stents in patients with left main coronary artery disease, a diagnosis affecting thousands of individuals. Drug-eluting stents are treated with a medication that helps keep the artery from reclosing.
The April issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association focuses on the ever-increasing use of bariatric surgery to control the excess morbidity and mortality associated with extreme obesity and the important role that registered dietitians play in the management of patients who have undergone the procedure.
Most women scheduled for gynecologic surgery to address noncancerous symptoms said in a recently published survey that they were not worried about the effects of the procedure on their sex lives.
A study of 1,000 procedures over 5 Years at Mercy Medical Center demonstrates significant advantages of Robotic Total Knee Replacement Surgery over conventional techniques.
The frequency of complex fusion procedures to treat spinal stenosis of the lower back increased between 2002-2007 among Medicare recipients, while the rates of decompression and simple fusion procedures decreased, according to a study in the April 7 issue of JAMA.
When doctors become invested in an outpatient surgery center, they perform on average twice as many surgeries as doctors with no such financial stake, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Health System.
A mobile compression device is as effective as medication at preventing the formation of blood clots after hip replacement surgery but provides greater patient safety.
A new head-mounted display system lets anesthesiologists keep an eye on critical monitoring data during surgery—without having to turn their attention away from the patient, reports a study in the April issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).
While health policy researchers commonly suggest that geographic variations in the amount of medical care provided can be attributed to hospital costs or physician practice patterns, a new study examining regional utilization of a specific surgical procedure – minimally invasive aneurysm repair – shows that is not the case.
In a move that could change the way many patients undergo surgery, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital has installed five state-of-the-art Siemens Artis zeego® medical imaging systems that provide faster, more accurate 3-D images of the body with a quality never before attainable. With more complete information, surgeons can better assess a patient's condition, devise a detailed surgical plan, and provide more targeted surgical treatment.
Four people have stepped forward to donate kidneys to four complete strangers, and their selfless acts have helped Loyola University Medical Center begin its Pay-it-Forward Kidney Transplant Program. It's first of its kind in the Midwest, and the largest number of altruistic donors to ever begin such a program in the United States.
People with diabetes who undergo cancer surgery are more likely to die in the month following their operations than those who have cancer but not diabetes, an analysis by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests.
Surgeons at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report what is believed to be the nation’s first single-incision laparoscopy to perform a combined colectomy and kidney-preserving therapy.
Surgeons at The Johns Hopkins Hospital have successfully completed their 100th kidney swap — a procedure popularized here to enlarge the pool of kidneys available for donation and provide organs to patients who might have died waiting for them.
After the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti left thousands of victims in its wake, nearly 20 members of the American Pediatric Surgical Association (APSA) put their lives on hold to travel to Haiti to help its youngest victims. With an estimated 40% of the population of Haiti being under the age of 18, many of the injured were children in need of specialized surgical care.
Kristen Kilpatrick, a college sophomore, nearly lost her arm in a boating accident. Orthopaedic trauma surgeon Dr. Joseph Borrelli was able to re-attach it.
Children with a cleft lip or cleft palate are more likely to receive recommended age-appropriate health care when that care is provided by an interdisciplinary team rather than an individual provider. In a study encompassing three states, 24% of participants were not receiving team care.
The ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in uniquely destructive patterns of combat injuries, including limb-threatening injuries to the knee. In the March special issue of Techniques in Knee Surgery (www.techknee.com), military surgeons serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom share their experience with managing these high-energy injuries of the knee.
Surgeons at Moores UCSD Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center based at UC San Diego, are conducting a clinical trial to evaluate whether a FDA-approved device that uses radiofrequency energy may cause less collateral damage to excised tissue, therefore making it easier to examine the tumor and ensure it is entirely removed.
Patients who undergo gastric bypass surgery experience changes in their urine composition that increase their risk of developing kidney stones, research from UT Southwestern Medical Center investigators suggests.
Joseph Zuckerman, MD, Walter A. L. Thompson Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and chair, department of orthopedic surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center Hospital for Joint Diseases, will present at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), March 9-13 at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, and joined by other orthopaedic surgeons from the medical center.
Tears in the shoulder’s rotator cuff, a common sports injury, are painful and restricting. New research shows an approved therapy for osteoporosis, Forteo, may speed healing and improve patient outcomes.
While physicians strive to set realistic expectations for patients undergoing knee and hip joint replacements, a new study reveals that doctor and patient expectations are sometimes not aligned.
In a landmark study of more than 80,000 live kidney donors from across the United States, Johns Hopkins researchers have found the procedure carries very little medical risk and that, in the long term, people who donate one of their kidneys are likely to live just as long as those who have two healthy ones.
As the guardian of patients’ vital health, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is urging those considering traveling internationally for medical care to educate themselves, and take the necessary precautions to avoid unexpected complications.
A new procedure for treating pancreatic and liver cancers using electrical fields to poke holes in tumors was used for the first time anywhere to fight pancreatic cancer at Stony Brook University Medical Center.
When the anesthesia care provider yells the code “Malignant Hyperthermia!” during a routine surgery there are approximately 15 minutes to save this patient’s life, you are excited but not panicking--- why?
Like silkworm moths, butterflies and spiders, caddisfly larvae spin silk, but they do so underwater. Now, University of Utah researchers have discovered why the fly’s silk is sticky when wet and how that may make it valuable as an adhesive tape during surgery.
Adam Berger, M.D., a Cancer Liaison Physician (CLP) at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, recently received an Outstanding Performance Award for going above and beyond the scope of the normal duties of serving as a liaison between the hospital’s cancer program and the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC). As a Cancer Liaison, he is serving a three-year appointment and is among a national network of over 1,600 volunteer physicians who are responsible for providing leadership and direction to establish, maintain and support their facility’s cancer program.
A major study shows that a minimally-invasive procedure is as effective and safe as the gold standard for treating blockages of the carotid artery, giving patients who prefer a less invasive procedure a proven alternative.
Surgeons at UC San Diego Medical Center have performed the nation’s first incision-free myotomy, a procedure to treat achalasia, a distressing disorder which causes difficulty swallowing, regurgitation and chest pain. The innovative surgery, performed through the mouth, is the most recent in a series of groundbreaking clinical trial surgeries being evaluated by the UCSD Center for the Future of Surgery.
A collaboration between the Center for Robotic Surgery at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) and the University at Buffalo (UB)’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has produced one of the world’s first simulators that closely approximates the “touch and feel” of the da Vinci TM robotic surgical system.
As many as half of all women and a quarter of men over the age of 50 can expect to sustain a fractured bone related to osteoporosis or low bone density. To enhance prevention and treatment of these fragility fractures, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center has implemented an innovative program called Own the Bone™ developed by the American Orthopaedic Association.
Dr. Francesco Rubino, chief of gastrointestinal metabolic surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, is now enrolling overweight and mildly obese patients -- those with a body mass index (BMI) of 28 to 35 -- in a study of gastric bypass surgery aimed at reversing Type 2 diabetes. Because of their non-morbidly obese status, these patients do not qualify for the surgery under current guidelines.
A new study published in the March issue of Anesthesiology raises awareness for an additional risk category for patients undergoing routine coronary artery bypass surgery – low to moderate levels of inflammation.
One year post-surgery, patients who underwent Descemet’s stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) experienced greater cell loss overall compared to those who underwent penetrating keratoplasty (PKP), according to a new analysis of data collected from the Cornea Donor Study (CDS) Investigator Group’s 2008 SMAS.
A comparison of two types of minimally invasive surgery to repair kidney blockages that prevent urine from draining normally to the bladder found that robot-assisted surgery was faster and resulted in less blood loss and shorter hospital stays.
Lung transplantation is a well-known therapy for patients with end-stage lung disease, but, as with other patients waiting for organs for transplantation, there are more recipients waiting than donors available. A potential solution for patients with end-stage lung disease is donation after cardiac death (DCD). Mayo Clinic reports its - and Minnesota’s - first lung transplantation from DCD in the February issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.