This 68-year-old patient with Stage 4 chronic kidney disease was reviewed in our low clearance clinic 2 months after formation of a left arteriovenous fistula. The prominent ‘half-and-half’ appearance of his nails was noted. Nail disorders are common in chronic renal failure, affecting up to 70% of haemodialysis patients [1]. Half-and-half or Lindsay nails [2], where the proximal half of the na...

Introduction: Fracture of the tibial and femoral diaphysis constitutes approximately 7% of fractures occurring in children1. Such fractures are commonly repaired by intra-medullary nailing. While removal of implanted nails is often routinely performed after fracture healing it is not always without complication, often due to difficulty or inability to remove the nail.Currently intra-medullary n...

The fingernails of Mary Sullivan, the last victim of the Boston Strangler, were examined to determine if any genetic information about the murderer could be obtained. The nails were extremely friable necessitating the development of new techniques for isolating and purifying DNA. DNA yields from nails were optimized by using a NaOH-based preparation technique, which was simple, efficient, and m...

Retrograde locked intramedullary nailing has gradually been widely used to treat femoral supracondylar fractures. Because a standard femoral supracondylar nail has unique disadvantages: high price and potentially inducing a femoral shaft stress fracture, it is often replaced by a traditional femoral or tibial locked nail. A biomechanical comparison was therefore made between both traditional lo...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the indications, epidemiology, associated lesions, complications and prognosis among children with unstable femoral diaphysis fractures who were treated with titanium elastic intramedullary nails. METHOD This was a retrospective analysis on 24 patients aged 5-12 years with unstable femoral diaphysis fractures who underwent surgical treatment with elastic titanium intrame...

Pulse oximetry (Spo2) is a simple, noninvasive method that is widely used to determine oxygen saturation in patients undergoing surgical procedures. Artificial acrylic nails have recently become fashionable to strengthen and lengthen nails. This study investigates the effect of unpolished acrylic nails on the measurement of oxygen saturation by pulse oximetry. Data were collected during a 3-mon...

Until very recently, analysis of bone biopsies by means of the method of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) collected after surgery or amputation has been considered as the sole reliable method for radiation dose assessment in hands and feet. EPR measurements in finger- and toenail have been considered for accident dosimetry for a long time. Human nails are very attractive biophysical materi...