Thursday 10 August 2017

A New Strategy and System for the Ex Vivo Ovary Perfusion and Cryopreservation

Childern and young adults, who suffer from cancer, receive gonadotoxic therapy, which destroys their fertile abilities after survival.

Cryopreservation

Ovarian cryopreservation and transplantation provides the promising solution to this problem, where the ovary can be removed before the gonadotoxic therapy and reimplanted after patient's survival, where the ovary is to be cryopreserved during the period of the therapy.

However, cryopreservation of the whole ovary is still facing great obstacles, namely the ischemic reperfusion injury and the defective cryopreservation related to the defective ability to universally deliver the cryopreservation/warming solutions through the ovarian vascular bed.


Wednesday 26 July 2017

Right Versus Left Laparoscopic Donor Nephrectomy: Initial 3 year Experience from a Single Centre Transplant Program

Left Laparoscopic Donor
Laparoscopic living donor nephrectomy is the standard of care at high volume transplant centers. Despite this there is still reticence to harvest the right kidney laparoscopically because of concerns regarding the shorter renal vein, higher complexity of dissection and potentially higher complication rates and worse renal allograft outcomes.
The aim of this single-center study of 72 consecutive laparoscopic donor nephrectomies was to compare left versus right-sided laparoscopic donors in terms of surgical difficulty, complication rates and outcomes.There were 56 left-sided and 16 right-sided donors. There was no significant difference in surgical outcomes or complication rates.
Similarly, the recipient surgery complication rates and allograft outcomes were no different between kidneys procured laparoscopically from the left or the right.

Monday 24 July 2017

Obesity and Transplantation

Obesity

The obesity epidemic continues unabated, especially in children and adolescents, in spite of extensive multidisciplinary approaches to curb this societal scourge.

An elevated body mass index (BMI), especially leading to an overweight or obese body habitus, has been clearly linked to the development and progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in adults.

This is due to the higher prevalence of diabetes and hypertension, but also likely due to the inflammation that can be induced by adipose tissues. Further compounding this problem is the higher morbidity and mortality that is seen in once these patients develop severe enough CKD to need a renal transplant

Thursday 20 July 2017

Right Versus Left Laparoscopic Donor Nephrectomy: Initial 3 year Experience from a Single Centre Transplant Program

Left Laparoscopic Donor Nephrectomy

Laparoscopic living donor nephrectomy is the standard of care at high volume transplant centers. Despite this there is still reticence to harvest the right kidney laparoscopically because of concerns regarding the shorter renal vein, higher complexity of dissection and potentially higher complication rates and worse renal allograft outcomes.

The aim of this single-center study of 72 consecutive laparoscopic donor nephrectomies was to compare left versus right-sided laparoscopic donors in terms of surgical difficulty, complication rates and outcomes.There were 56 left-sided and 16 right-sided donors.

There was no significant difference in surgical outcomes or complication rates. Similarly, the recipient surgery complication rates and allograft outcomes were no different between kidneys procured laparoscopically from the left or the right.

Monday 17 July 2017

Dynamic Lumbar Stabilization with Peek Rod/Titanium to Prevent Adjacent Disc Pathology

Adjacent Disc Pathology
Over the last decades segmental spinal fusion has become the standard surgical procedure for lumbar degenerative spondyloarthropathy.

Its evolution towards the most modern instrumentation techniques has achieved a very high percentage of success in spinal fusion in the lumbar region.

This varies between 72 and 91%, depending on the technique used. But the success of lumbar fusion has been seen to be accompanied by the appearance of what is known as adjacent segment disease.


Tuesday 11 July 2017

Noninvasive Flap Monitoring using Sidestream Dark Field Microscan: A Method for Real-Time Observation of Submilimmetric Vessels

Submilimmetric Vessels

A timely diagnosis of vascular compromise improves free flap survival. The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of monitoring flap vascular patency through noninvasive microcirculation monitoring using SDF.

An experimental study was performed in five volunteers. A radial forearm flap was simulated in both upper extremities and cutaneous microcirculation assessment devices were used (SDF and NIRS), and compared with clinical and doppler evaluation.

Conditions of venous occlusion (VO) and total vascular occlusion (TVO) were mimicked by using a cuff. The results of the Microscan SDF monitoring during VO and TVO showed a reduced microcirculatory flow at 16.5 (6-30) and 6 (2-11) seconds respectively.

Thursday 6 July 2017

Evaluation on the Effectiveness of the Different Modes of Publicity for Tissue Donation among Healthcare Professionals in Singapore

Healthcare Professionals
In Singapore, the donation of tissues is governed by the Medical (Therapy, Education and Research) Act. For past years, our tissue banks have engaged in various publicity methods. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of our publicity strategies among healthcare professionals.

A 6-questions survey was conducted among doctors, nurses, allied health and support services staff from Singapore General Hospital and National Heart Centre Singapore. Sample size was calculated in accordance to the occupation ratio.

Of the 450 respondents who completed the survey, most did not see, read or heard about tissue donation. Newspaper articles were their main source of information amongst those who encountered tissue donation message.