1,720,995 research outputs found
Surgeon Volume and the Outcomes of Dupuytren's Surgery: Results from a Dutch Multicenter Study
No full textEumorphic Plastic Surgery: Expectation Versus Satisfaction in Body Dysmorphic Disorder
No full textBackground: Eumorphic Plastic Surgery aims at improving the severe psychosocial pain caused by a deformity. Dysmorphopathology is an increasingly relevant problem facing the plastic surgeon. Objective: The aim of this study is to describe the perioperative questionnaires created by the senior author and to present a cohort of plastic surgery patients suffering from dysmorphopathies. These patients were prospectively followed and evaluated with the proposed questionnaires through their surgical pathway to explore the degree of satisfaction or disappointment compared to expectations. Methods: All candidates for plastic surgery procedures between April 2011 and June 2013 were included in the study. Preoperatively, all patients completed the Patient Expectation Questionnaire (E-pgm). Twelve months postoperatively, they completed the Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (S-pgm). The E-pgm and S-pgm were compared to evaluate the consistency between the patient’s preoperative expectations and postoperative evaluations. Results: A total of 158 patients were included in the study. Out of them, 79 % experienced an improvement or no variation between preoperative expectations and postoperative satisfaction. With regard to the motivation for undergoing surgery, 91 % showed that the surgical procedure met the motivation. An overall positive perioperative change in life was experienced by 93 % of patients. Conclusions: The E-pgm questionnaire proved to be a valid and reliable tool for the selection of suitable candidates for surgery and for identification of dysmorphophobic patients. Enhancing the doctor–patient relationship and communication can reduce ambiguity and avoid troublesome misunderstandings, litigation and other legal implications. Level of Evidence IV: This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266
Imaging features of primary tumors of the hand
No full textMusculoskeletal tumors of the hand are a rare entity and are divided into skeletal and soft tissue tumors. Either category comprises benign and malignant or even intermediate tumors. Basic radiology allows an optimal resolution of bone and related soft tissue areas, ultrasound and more sophisticated radiologic tools such as scintigraphy, CT and MRI allow a more accurate evaluation of tumor extent. Enchondroma is the most common benign tumor affecting bone, whereas chondrosarcoma is the most commonly represented malignant neoplasm localized to hand bones. In the soft tissues, ganglions are the most common benign tumors and epithelioid sarcoma is the most frequently represented malignant tumor targeting hand soft tissues. The knowledge regarding diagnostic and therapeutic management of these tumors is often deriving from small case series, retrospective studies or even case reports. Evidences from prospective studies or controlled trials are limited and for this lack of clear and supported evidences, data from the medical literature on the topic are controversial, in terms of demographics, clinical presentation, diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. The correct recognition of the specific subtype and extension of the tumor through first line and second line radiology is essential for the surgeon, in order to effectively direct the therapeutic decisions
Knowledge, preservation principles and intervention, in the architectural-archaeological restoration of My Son.
No full textThe archaeological area of Mỹ Sơn is one of the most important architectural examples of the south East Asia. The site was discovered and cleaned from the jungle vegetation only at the end of the 19th cent, after centuries of complete abandonment.
The French were the only ones also as researchers, who took care of the Cham people who built Mỹ Sơn, through the work of Henry Parmentier, with archaeological excavations up to the half of the 20th cent.. The political and war events from the fifties to the sixties which continued in Vietnam did not allow the prosecution of the excavations.
The research was continued for a short period from 1982 to 1986 thanks to Vietnamese-Polish mission which restored some temples in Mỹ Sơn. This mission worked not only on the Mỹ Sơn site, but also in the most important Cham sites in the Vietnamese territory. From the nineties also Vietnamese researchers were interested on the Cham archaeology and architecture unfortunately their publication were in Vietnamese and their reports were difficult to be approached.
The Cham religious buildings were realised with brick masonry with very thin joints and at the end of the American/Vietnamese war most of them were reduced to ruins.
Vietnam country is now enjoying a very happy economical period with a large development of nearly all sectors; therefore the Vietnamese feel today a deep will of reconstruct their identity also through the valorisation of the cultural patrimony. Nevertheless the country is still rather weak from the point of view of history and theory of restoration, if compared to Europe.
In these last years the restoration of Cham buildings was carried out with new techniques and materials and reconstructions of missing parts according to the pre-existing style. The works were done following a way which belongs to the wishes of the Asiatic culture (e.g. it is enough to remember the reconstruction of the Japanese temples as a procedure adopted for centuries).
In several examples invasive techniques and inappropriate materials were adopted in Vietnam, which along the time have caused quick degradation of the new parts and amplification of the deterioration phenomena. Furthermore the peculiar construction technique with thin resin joints in the masonry does not allow the use of techniques familiar to the Europeans.
From 2003 thanks to a first convention (1999-2001) between UNESCO, Vietnam Ministry of Culture and the Fondazione Lerici a pilot project for excavation and conservation was started of a group of religious buildings partially at the state of ruins in Mỹ Sơn; they were classified by H. Parmentier with the letter G and were built between the 11th and 13th cent. he project developed up to now in Mỹ Sơn allows to answer to numerous open ions of historical and scientific character and to give the site a new value through the right conservation of some buildings
From 2000 the Dept of Structural Engineering (DIS) of the Politecnico of Milan thanks to Prof. L. Binda and her collaborators is actively involved in the characterisation of the original Cham materials, and the individuation of the original construction techniques, in the definition of the state of preservation and in the research and characterisation of compatible materials, in the proposal of a conservation project based on right methodologies and intervention techniques
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Hypoxia enhances proliferation and stemness of human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells
No full textThe aim of the study was to obtain the highest number of multipotent adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSCs) by using culture conditions which favour cell expansion without loss of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC)-like properties. Based on the assumption that stem cells reside in niches characterized by hypoxic condition, we investigated if the low oxygen tension may improve the proliferation and stemness of ADMSCs. Intact adipose tissue was resected from eight subjects, and the stromal vascular fraction was obtained by using type II collagenase. The heterogeneity of cellular lineages was confirmed by immunophenotypic analysis that showed the presence of leukocytes (CD45+), endothelial cells (CD34+), and pericytes (CD140+). The immunophenotype of confluent ADMSCs was similar to that of bone marrow-derived MSCs, except for the expression of CD34, which was variable (donor-dependent) and inversely correlated to the CD36 expression. ADMSCs showed a high clonal efficiency (94.5 ± 1 %) and were able to generate osteoblastic, chondrocytic and adipocytic lineages. ADMSCs were cultured under normoxic (21 % O2) and hypoxic (1 % O2) conditions, and we found that hypoxia significantly favoured ADMSC proliferation and preserved the expression of stemness genes, i.e. Nanog and Sox2. Since hypoxia reflects the microenvironment in which ADMSCs must proliferate and differentiate, the culture in hypoxic condition allows to better understand the biology of these cells and their regenerative potential. Low oxygen concentrations promote cell proliferation and stemness, thus enriching the pool of cells potentially able to differentiate into multi-lineages, and extending the possibility of a long-term expansion
Il carcinoma spinocellulare: considerazioni clinico-epidemiologiche e follow-up in 171 casi operati presso l'ospedale di Novara
No full textAutologous fat transplantation versus adipose-derived stem cell-enriched lipografts: A study
No full textBackground: Several techniques for lipoinjection have been described in the literature. Recently, the role of adult stem cells in adipose tissue has gained interest.Objectives: The authors compare autologous fat transplantation to adipose-derived stem cell-enriched lipografts.Methods: A group of 20 patients with congenital or acquired facial tissue defects were included in this study and randomly divided into two groups. Ten patients were treated with autologous fat transplantation (Group A; 12-165 mL per session), and the remaining ten were treated with adipose-derived stem cell-enriched lipografts (Group B; 8-155 mL per session). Overall patient satisfaction after both treatments was evaluated at six, 12, and 18 months after the initial surgical procedure.Results: In Group A, three patients achieved aesthetically-acceptable results after the first treatment; the remaining seven patients required additional sessions. In Group B, all patients required only one treatment. Analysis of patient satisfaction in the first six months clearly demonstrated better results in Group B. However, by the 18-month evaluation, there was no statistical difference between the two groups in terms of patient satisfaction.Conclusions: Adipose-derived stem cell-enriched lipografts produced aesthetically-acceptable results without the need for repeat treatment sessions, which are necessary with autologous fat transplantation. Further long-term studies are necessary to confirm the favorable results seen in this study. © 2011 The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Inc
Metabolic effects of large-volume liposuction for obese healthy women: a meta-analysis of fasting insulin levels.
No full textBACKGROUND:
Obesity is increasingly frequent in our society and is associated closely with metabolic disorders. As some studies have suggested, removal of fat tissue through liposuction and dermolipectomies may be of some benefit in the improvement of metabolic indices. This article aimed to review the published literature on this topic and to evaluate metabolic variations meta-analytically after liposuction, dermolipectomy, or both.
METHODS:
Through a literature search with the PubMed/Medline database, 14 studies were identified. All articles were analyzed, and several metabolic variables were chosen in the attempt to meta-analyze the effect of adipose tissue removal through the various studies. All statistical calculations were performed with Review Manager (RevMan), version 5.0.
RESULTS:
Several cardiovascular and metabolic variables are described as prone to variations after body-contouring procedures when a significant amount of adipose tissue has been excised. Four of the studies included in the analysis reported improvements in all the parameters examined. Seven articles showed improvement in some variables and no improvement in others, whereas three studies showed no beneficial variation in any of the considered indicators after body-contouring procedures. Fasting plasma insulin was identified as the only variable for which a meta-analysis of five included studies was possible. The meta-analysis showed a statistically significant reduction in fasting plasma insulin resulting from large-volume liposuction in obese healthy women.
CONCLUSION:
Many beneficial metabolic effects resulting from dermolipectomy and liposuction procedures are described in the literature. In particular, fasting plasma insulin and thus insulin sensitivity seem to be positively influenced. Further research, including prospective clinical studies, is necessary for better exploration of the effects that body-contouring plastic surgery procedures have on metabolic parameters
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