BACKGROUND Outcomes of patients undergoing cavopulmonary palliation for single ventricle physiology may be impacted by living at altitude, as the passive pulmonary circulation is dependent on the resistance of the pulmonary vascular bed. The objective of this study is to identify risk factors for failure of cavopulmonary palliation at elevated altitude. METHODS AND RESULTS Between January 199...

Hypoplastic left heart syndrome is a relatively common cardiac malformation, accounting for 4-9% of children born with congenital heart disease. Since 1981 the mainstay of treatment has been the Norwood series of operations which have been variously modified, most recently using an RV-PA conduit (Sano shunt). With these surgical modifications and with increased experience in perioperative care ...

Abstract Introduction Esophageal stents are being used more frequently for maintaining esophageal lumen patency in benign as well malignant conditions. But the do not come without complications. The most common complication is stent migration. It can go unnoticed asymptomatic individuals whereas timely exclusion of urgent complications associated with migration necessary to avoid morbidity and ...

Prostate cancer is a growing public health problem. The palliation of pain in patients with painful bone metastases is of primary importance in the clinical management of advanced cancer. Internal therapy with radionuclides, which concentrate at sites of increased bone turnover, is used to control pain and improve quality of life as an alternative to conventional therapies. In the present study...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical efficacy of percutaneous cementoplasty with respect to pain relief in patients with refractory painful bone metastases. DESIGN Case series. SETTING Regional hospital, Hong Kong. PATIENTS All oncological patients with painful bone metastases despite conventional treatment seen between October 2006 and May 2010 were recruited. INTERVENTIONS Cementoplasty...

Introduction:Targeted radionuclide therapy (TRT) has been demonstrated to be an effective therapeutic tool in patients with disseminated bone metastasis. TRT is generally performed with a single radionuclide. In this study we investigated the feasibility of combined TRT with a high-energy beta emitter (153Sm) and a low energy beta emitter (177Lu) in wistar...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Spinal metastases often severely limit the quality of life by causing severe pain and neurological deficits. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the palliative effect of radiotherapy (RT) for spinal metastases from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and to identify factors predictive of survival in HCC patients with spinal metastases who received RT. METHODS A retrospective ...