BACKGROUND Low haematocrit (Hct) is associated with a higher rate of post-operative complications, increased mortality, and additional medical costs following cardiac surgery. Predictors of post-operative Hct in lumbar fusion are unclear and may be beneficial in avoiding adverse surgical outcomes. METHODS A total of 704 lumbar disc herniation patients (385 males, 319 females) who underwent pr...

lymph node status remains an important prognostic indicator for survival in breast cancer. sentinel lymph node biopsy has become the standard method of assessment of clinically node negative breast cancers. economic implications as well as patient related factors have lead to the development a number of intra-operative techniques. review of the emerging trends in the last 4 years show that alth...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to improve the surgical treatment of epilepsy by maximising seizure control while protecting language function. METHODS A combined process of extra-operative electrical cortical stimulation (ECS) mapping, direct ECS and intra-operative continuous language assessment was performed during complicated operative cases. Of the 24 epilepsy patients, nine had ...

OBJECTIVES To determine the sensitivity, accuracy, and clinical relevance of intra-operative examination of sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer management. DESIGN Retrospective study. SETTING Private anatomical pathology practice. PARTICIPANTS Three hundred breast cancer patients who underwent axillary sentinel lymph node biopsies for intra-operative assessment between January 2004 and ...

As MRI threatens the use of bone scintigraphy for skeletal metastases and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18FDG-PET) emerges as the main focus in nuclear oncology, the future role of the gamma camera in cancer imaging appears unclear. However, there is a range of pre-existing conventional gamma camera techniques that have incremental benefit over CT and other structural ima...

UNLABELLED Localization of sentinel lymph nodes can be challenging if they are in difficult anatomic locations or near high radiotracer activity. The purpose of this study was to assess the value of intraoperative real-time imaging using a portable gamma-camera in conjunction with a conventional gamma-counting probe when it is difficult to localize the sentinel node. METHODS After (99m)Tc-nan...

OBJECTIVES Our aim was to assess the use of intra-operative fluoroscopy in the assessment of the position of the tibial tunnel during reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). METHODS Between January and June 2009 a total of 31 arthroscopic hamstring ACL reconstructions were performed. Intra-operative fluoroscopy was introduced (when available) to verify the position of the guid...