We would like to congratulate Fruchter et al 1 for their ingenious, effective, and minimally invasive way of treating the very challenging condition of bronchopleural fi stulas as reported in a recent issue of CHEST (March 2011). However, because we were cited in their work, we must make a correction. The misunderstanding is that our fi rst publication was a case report of our fi rst patient (5...

BACKGROUND A triad of deformities-thoracolumbar scoliosis, pelvic obliquity, and femoral head (hip) subluxation/dislocation-occurs frequently in non-ambulatory neuromuscular patients, but their close inter-relationship is infrequently appreciated or quantified. We propose a deformity documentation approach to assess each component simultaneously. METHODS The documentation assesses each compon...

When spinal circuits generate rhythmic movements it is important that the neuronal activity remains within stable bounds to avoid saturation and to preserve responsiveness. Here, we simultaneously record from hundreds of neurons in lumbar spinal circuits of turtles and establish the neuronal fraction that operates within either a 'mean-driven' or a 'fluctuation-driven' regime. Fluctuation-drive...

Spiking activity in motor axons represents the final central coding for muscle contraction. Recurrent collaterals in spinal cord from these same axons are known to offer a negative feedback control of motor output via a class of interposed inhibitory interneurons. Here we demonstrate that, during noradrenergic drive, a previously unknown recurrent excitatory pathway is unmasked and expressed. T...

Method Primary outcome measures reported include Cobb angle, disc index, apical vertebral deviation, vertebral rotation, digital spirometry, scoliometry, timed onelegged stability with eyes closed (TOLSWEC), and computerized dual inclinometry, as well as pain drawings and health-related quality of life questionnaires (RAND SF-36 and SRS-22). Data was recorded post-treatment and at follow-up ran...

Dynamic spinal fixators, such as the Dynesys (DY) and K-ROD (KD) systems, are designed to restore spinal stability and to provide flexibility. The long-term complications of implant breakage and the biomechanics of the adjacent and the bridged levels using the KD system are still unknown. Therefore, this study aims to investigate and compare the biomechanical effects of the KD system and the DY...

Degenerative spinal disorders including low back pain are one of the most common and costly problems for modern society. It has been recognized that these disorders are directly or indirectly associated with intervertebral disc degeneration. The disc is a cartilaginous connective tissue, composed of the nucleus pulposus(NP), annulus fibrosus and endplates, which connects adjacent vertebrae (the...

A test of flexibility, so widely used that it deserves to be called the classical measure, is hip flexion. It has featured in a variety of guises as the toe-touch test (Weber and Kraus, 1949; Buxton, 1957; Larson, 1974) the sit and reach test (Wells and Dillon, 1952), the femoral trunk angle (Troup, Hood and Chapman, 1968) and supine leg lift (Tanigawa, 1972). Harris (1969) reports on its high ...

Background Severe scoliosis in patients with cerebral palsy (CP) causes difficulty in sitting balance and creates increased nursing demands. Surgical stabilization has proven to be a valuable method to stop the progression of scoliosis [1]. However, the complication rate after such surgery is substantial[2]. Additionally, many patients with quadriplegia and large curvatures of the spine have im...

background & importance: spinal deformity is one of the most common disorders among the vertebral diseases that results from unnatural curvatures of spine, such as scoliosis and kyphosis. spinal fusion surgery used most commonly to treat certain types of spinal deformity. here in, we report the efficacy of posterior spinal fusion accompanied by instrumentation in patients with the limitations o...