BACKGROUND Brain laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) under magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guidance has recently gained US clinical approval for the ablation of soft, neurological tissue. LITT is a minimally invasive alternative to craniotomy. OBJECTIVE While safety and efficacy are the focus of most current LITT studies, it is unclear how acute care costs (inpatient care ± aftercare) ...

PURPOSE A systematic review and meta-analysis comparing the safety, efficacy, and expenses related to phacoemulsification versus manual small incision cataract surgery (SICS). METHODS PubMed, Cochrane, and Scopus databases were searched with key words manual SICS 6/18 and 6/60; astigmatism and endothelial cell loss postoperatively, intra- and post-operative complications, phacoemulsification,...

background: during spermatogenesis, the h2b family, member w (h2b.w) gene, encodes a testis specific histone that is co-localized with telomeric sequences and has the potential role to mediate the sperm-specific chromatin remodeling. previously h2b.w genetic variants were reported to be involved in susceptibility to spermatogenesis impairment. in the present study, two single nucleotide polymor...

PURPOSE Meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate whether zero-profile anchored spacer (Zero-P) could reduce complication rates, while maintaining similar clinical outcomes compared to plate-cage construct (PCC) in the treatment of cervical spondylosis. METHODS All prospective and retrospective comparative studies published up to May 2015 that compared the clinical outcomes of Zero-P versus PCC...

BACKGROUND Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) was one of the preferred treatments for degenerative cervical spondylosis. However, the motion of adjacent segment was significantly increased after operation. So cervical disc arthroplasty have been suggested to keep the motion of adjacent segment. A new implant named dynamic cervical implant (DCI) has been developed to keep the motion ...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the value of statins in reducing abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) growth rate and improving freedom from aneurysm repair or rupture. One hundred and twenty-one patients with AAA undergoing ultrasonographic surveillance for at least one year were included in this retrospective study. Patients treated with statins had a decreased linear aneurysm growth rate th...

Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) have been shown to inhibit T-cell responses in many diseases, but, in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected patients, MDSCs are still poorly studied. In this assay, we investigated the phenotype and frequency of two new populations of MDSCs denoted as monocytic and granulocytic MDSCs (M-MDSCs and G-MDSCs) in HCV infected patients and analyzed their clinical s...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have documented that obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) increases the incidence of hypertension, respiratory failure and unexpected post-operative deaths during night in coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) patients. We hypothesized that continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) reduces blood pressure in these patients. METHODS We conducted a prospective, controlled ...