Unilateral breast reconstruction poses a special set of challenges to the reconstructive breast surgeon compared to bilateral reconstructions. No studies to date provide an objective comparison between autologous and implant based reconstructions in matching the contralateral breast. This study compares the quantitative postoperative results between unilateral implant and autologous flap recons...

Autologous blood donation may incur hazards that are not directly associated with blood transfusion. Graham et al. 1 reported on 78 patients who donated autologous blood before elective cardiac or orthopedic surgery in Ottawa. Seventy-three (94%) of these patients traveled by automobile to autologous blood donation appointments. These patients drove a mean distance of 130 km (80.8 mi) for this ...

BACKGROUND Patients having unilateral breast reconstruction often require a second stage procedure on the contralateral breast to improve symmetry. In order to provide immediate symmetry and minimize the frequency and extent of secondary procedures, we began performing simultaneous contralateral balancing operations at the time of initial reconstruction. This study examines the indications, saf...

Unresectable metastatic bone sarcoma and soft-tissue sarcomas (STS) are incurable due to the inability to eradicate chemoresistant cancer stem-like cells (sCSC) that are likely responsible for relapses and drug resistance. In this study, we investigated the preclinical activity of patient-derived cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells against autologous bone sarcoma and STS, including against puta...

Acute myeloid leukemias (AMLs) are monoclonal proliferations of undifferentiated myeloid progenitors in blood and bone marrow. Long-term remissions are achieved in <50% of patients. There is hope that activation of specific antileukemic immune responses could efficiently eliminate minimal residual disease at the end of chemotherapy and decrease the frequency of relapses. It was demonstrated tha...

Effective presentation of tumor antigens is fundamental to strategies aimed at enrolling the immune system in eradication of residual disease after conventional treatments. Myeloid malignancies provide a unique opportunity to derive dendritic cells (DCs), functioning antigen-presenting cells, from the malignant cells themselves. These may then co-express leukemic antigens together with appropri...

BACKGROUND Since the recognition that human immunodeficiency virus is transmissible by blood transfusion there has been increasing public and professional support for autologous blood donations before elective surgery. Autologous blood donation is, however, a more expensive process than the donation of allogeneic blood by community volunteers. Furthermore, there have been recent improvements in...

BACKGROUND The majority of chronic urticaria cases are chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU) with no specific identifiable etiology. The role of autoantibodies in such cases remains controversial. OBJECTIVE This study determined the positivity rate of autologous serum tests in CIU patients. METHODS This study was performed on 30 patients with CIU and 30 individuals without any systemic or derm...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of intraoperative autologous blood transfusion during laparotomy for hemoperitoneum in ectopic pregnancy and also safety of homologous blood transfusion along with autologous blood transfusion. METHOD Fresh blood, from peritoneal cavity, was collected for autotransfusion in sterile dish, filtered through eight layers ...