BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to determine the risk of contamination of surgical instruments according to the type of instrument and the surgical procedure. METHODS Microbiologic examination was conducted on 140 pairs of forceps used in 24 elective laparotomies. These included 60 pairs of tissue forceps and 80 pairs of DeBakey forceps. Microbes on their surface were recovered using a m...

It has been recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that rigorous decontamination protocols be used on surgical instruments that have been exposed to tissue possibly contaminated with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). This study was designed to examine the effects of these protocols on various types of surgical instruments. The most...

Access to medical care during long duration space missions is extremely important. Numerous unanticipated medical problems will need to be addressed promptly and efficiently. Although telemedicine provides a convenient tool for remote diagnosis and treatment, it is impractical due to the long delay between data transmission and reception to Earth. While a well-trained surgeon-internist-astronau...

Recently, the endonasal transsphenoidal approach has been widely used as the standard technique for pituitary surgery instead of the sublabial approach. However, using this approach involves potential conflicts between surgical instruments when entering the nostril and while working inside even with an endoscope. In patients with small nostril, it requires an additional tension release incision...

Background Frailty assessment may inform surgical risk and prognosis not captured by conventional surgical risk scores. Purpose To evaluate the evidence for various frailty instruments used to predict mortality, functional status, or major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCEs) in older adults undergoing cardiac surgical procedures. Data Sources MEDLINE and EMBASE (witho...

INTRODUCTION As attending surgeons' comfort with single-incision laparoscopic surgery (SILS) grows, and with continued improvement in surgical instruments, advanced laparoscopic techniques are increasingly being incorporated into surgical training. The aim of our study was to evaluate resident performance and patient outcomes in patients undergoing resident-performed SILS versus a resident-perf...