The human-specific Alu elements, belonging to the class of Short INterspersed Elements (SINEs), have been shown to be a powerful tool for population genetic studies. An earlier study in this department showed that it was possible to analyze Alu presence/absence in 3000-year-old skeletal human remains from the Bronze Age Lichtenstein cave in Lower Saxony, Germany. We developed duplex Alu screeni...

BACKGROUND Inguinal hernia is a common condition and its repair (herniorrhaphy) is one of the most commonly performed procedures in general surgery. The Lichtenstein herniorrhaphy technique is a widely used and effective surgery that uses mesh to reinforce the area of weakness. Although a wide range of mesh sizes are available for use in hernia repair, in low-resource health care settings the p...

Fibrous dysplasia is a benign bone disease first described by Lichtenstein in 1938. It is characterized by progressive replacement of normal bone with fibro-osseous connective tissue. When the disease involves craniofacial skeleton, it results in significant disfigurement and other functional problems. This paper reports a case of large craniofacial fibrous dysplasia involving zygomaticomaxilla...

INTRODUCTION Giant inguinoscrotal hernias are extremely rare nowadays, but they may still be encountered after years or even decades of neglect. Such hernias containing both bowel loops and urinary bladder have not been reported in the medical literature to date, to the best of our knowledge. CASE PRESENTATION We report a case of a 65-year-old Moroccan man who presented with giant right-sided...

As indicated in Chapter 2 estimates indicate that over 29 million individuals in the U.S. exhibit some degree of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) (NIDCD, 2001). It is well accepted that the major sequlae of SNHL is communicative difficulty, particularly in noisy or reverberant listening environments (Crandell, 1991, Crandell and Smaldino, 2000, 2001; Dubno, Dirks, and Morgan, 1984; Killion, 19...

BACKGROUND Recurrences have been a significant problem following hernia repair. Prosthetic materials have been increasingly used in hernia repair to prevent recurrences. Their use has been associated with several advantages, such as less postoperative pain, rapid recovery, low recurrence rates. METHODS In this retrospective study, 540 tension-free inguinal hernia repairs were performed betwee...