OBJECTIVE The incidence of spinal treatment, including nerve block, radiofrequency neurotomy, instrumented fusions, is increasing, and progressively involves patients of age 65 and older. Treatment of the geriatric patients is often a difficult challenge for the spine surgeon. General health, sociofamilial and mental condition of the patients as well as the treatment techniques and postoperativ...

Although exposure to electromagnetic radiation in radiofrequency range has caused a great deal of concern globally, radiofrequency radiation has many critical applications in both telecommunication and non-communication fields. The induction of adaptive response phenomena by exposure to radiofrequency radiation as either increased resistance to a subsequent dose of ionizing radiation or resista...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the efficacy and safety of transcatheter radiofrequency-assisted valve dilatation for infants with pulmonary valve atresia and intact ventricular septum as an alternative to the use of laser heated wires. DESIGN Prospective clinical study. SETTING Three paediatric cardiology centres. PATIENTS Four children (aged 5-101 days, weight 2.8 kg) with pulmonary valve atre...

BACKGROUND Ablation lesion depth caused by radiofrequency-based renal denervation (RDN) was limited to <4 mm in previous animal studies, suggesting that radiofrequency-RDN cannot ablate a substantial percentage of renal sympathetic nerves. We aimed to define the true lesion depth achieved with radiofrequency-RDN using a fine sectioning method and to investigate biophysical parameters that could...

BACKGROUND Radiofrequency ablation is an established but expensive treatment option for many forms of supraventricular tachycardia. Most cases of supraventricular tachycardia are not life-threatening; the goal of therapy is therefore to improve the patient's quality of life. OBJECTIVE To compare the cost-effectiveness of radiofrequency ablation with that of medical management of supraventricu...

Myth: Cell phones and other similar technology increase the risk of brain tumors. Answer: Lawsuits and news headlines have fueled the myth that cell phones cause cancer, particularly brain cancer. According to a survey by Gansler (2008), about 30% of Americans believe the myth. Cell phones are clearly visible in society. Statistics show that 79% of the U.S. population and 90% of European and As...

OBJECTIVE To compare the outcome of cryothermal and radiofrequency energy transcatheter ablation of atrioventricular junctional re-entrant tachycardia in children and adolescents. DESIGN Case series with internal comparison. SETTING Two hospitals in Hong Kong. PATIENTS Consecutive transcatheter ablation procedures for atrioventricular junctional re-entrant tachycardia in children and adol...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the safety and effectiveness of different bipolar radiofrequency system algorithms in interrupting the renal sympathetic nerves and reducing renal norepinephrine in a healthy porcine model. METHODS A porcine model (N = 46) was used to investigate renal norepinephrine levels and changes to renal artery tissues and nerves following percutaneous renal denervation with radio...

BACKGROUND In selected patients with hypertension, renal artery (RA) stenting is used to treat significant atherosclerotic stenoses. However, blood pressure often remains uncontrolled after the procedure. Although catheter-based renal denervation (RDN) can reduce blood pressure in certain patients with resistant hypertension, there are no data on the feasibility and safety of RDN in stented RA....

BACKGROUND Radiofrequency ablation inside pulmonary vein (PV) ostia can cause PV stenosis. A novel alternative method of ablation is irreversible electroporation, but the long-term response of PVs to electroporation ablation is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS In ten 6-month-old pigs (60-75 kg), the response of PVs to circular electroporation and radiofrequency ablation was compared. Ten consecut...