The primary goal in the treatment of malignant obstruction is the relief of jaundice. Although operative biliary bypass is a reliable method of palliation, nonoperative palliation may be desirable in selected patients. We report our experience with forty-eight self expandable metallic biliary endoprostheses (Wallstent) percutaneously placed in 35 patients with irresectable malignant biliary obs...

Amphiphilic macromolecules containing a polystyrene-adherent peptide domain and a cell-repellent poly(ethylene glycol) domain were designed, synthesized, and evaluated as a cytophobic surface coating. Such cytophobic, or cell-repellent, coatings are of interest for varied medical and biotechnological applications. The composition of the polystyrene binding peptide domain was identified using an...

Adherent mammalian cells dynamically interact with their extracellular matrix (ECM) and culture substrate. To accommodate this sensitivity, standard culture techniques typically utilize tissue culture polystyrene (TCPS), a treated polystyrene substrate that promotes cell attachment. However, TCPS cannot be easily integrated into microfluidic devices as it is incompatible with conventional fabri...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To report the first series of patients with severe airway manifestations of relapsing polychondritis (RP) that were managed successfully with self-expandable metallic stents, and to review the literature. DESIGN Retrospective review of medical records, and current clinical follow-up. SETTING Tertiary care referral hospital. PATIENTS All patients with airway manifestations ...

BACKGROUND AND STUDY AIMS Membrane-covered self-expandable metal stents are effective in preventing tumor ingrowth and stent obstruction in patients with inoperable esophageal cancer, but migration of stents continues to be a major problem. We therefore constructed a modified covered self-expandable esophageal metal stent capable of being fixed using a silk thread. The stent was studied prospec...

OBJECTIVES We sought to determine the basis for restenosis within superficial femoral arteries (SFAs) and hemodialysis conduits treated with balloon-expandable stents. BACKGROUND Use of stents within coronary and peripheral vessels continues to increase exponentially. The mechanism of restenosis within stents placed at various vascular sites is not well understood. In particular, the implicat...

BACKGROUND Esophageal cancer is the seventh-most frequent cause of cancer-related deaths and it is usually diagnosed at an inoperable stage. In palliative treatment, endoscopic and non-endoscopic methods are applied to reduce dysphagia in patients with neoplastic esophageal obstruction. Because of severe complications, non-endoscopic treatment (surgery, radiotherapy, brachytherapy and chemother...

Esophageal cancer is the sixth leading cause of death from cancer worldwide [1]. Due to the esophagus distensible characteristics, patients may not recognize any symptoms until 50% of the luminal diameter is compromised explaining why cancer of the esophagus is generally associated with late presentation and poor prognosis [2]. Esophageal stents are devices used to maintain or restore the lumen...

Bayesian sparse factor models have proven useful for characterizing dependence in multivariate data, but scaling computation to large numbers of samples and dimensions is problematic. We propose expandable factor analysis for scalable inference in factor models when the number of factors is unknown. The method relies on a continuous shrinkage prior for efficient maximum a posteriori estimation ...

The Multimedia Information Presentation System (MIPS) will allow end-users to browse multimedia information presented in a user-friendly and consistent manner. In its most powerful configuration, it will allow the end-user to formulate queries which are interpreted, analysed , and despatched by the system to heterogeneous distributed external data sources, and to view a coherent and customized ...