We report two cases of cervical spinal epidural abscess (SEA), which are related to anterior cervical surgeries. The first case reveals a late postoperative infection without any predisposing factor. The second case reveals combined complication of infection and instrument failure (artificial disc). Both two cases manifested ascending infections that are unusual courses of anterior cervical inf...

The automatic determination of the optic disc area in retinal fundus images can be useful for calculation of the cup-to-disc (CD) ratio in the glaucoma screening. We compared three different methods that employed active contour model (ACM), fuzzy c-mean (FCM) clustering, and artificial neural network (ANN) for the segmentation of the optic disc regions. The results of these methods were evaluat...

STUDY DESIGN  Systematic review.Clinical questions: What are the rates and causes of subsequent surgeries? What is the long-term complication rates following cervical artificial disc replacement (C-ADR)? How do these rates change over time? METHODS  A systematic review was undertaken for articles published up to October 2011. Electronic databases and reference lists of key articles were searc...

STUDY DESIGN  Systematic review.Clinical questions: (1) What evidence is available from studies of cervical total disc arthroplasty (C-ADR) failure and retrieval regarding durability, wear, and reasons for failure of C-ADR? (2) What evidence is available from experimental models regarding the durability of C-ADR beyond 5 years? METHODS  We searched electronic databases to identify published r...

Practical PAIN MANAGEMENT, January/February 2007 ©2007 PPM Communications, Inc. Reprinted with permission. Diagnostic Provocation Discographic Injections Lumbar provocation discography remains a controversial diagnostic technique; and even more so with cervical/ thoracic discography. To appreciate the historical controversy surrounding discography is to understand that its inception was a tenuo...

Arrays of planar symmetric gold quadrumers consisting of a central nano-disc surrounded by three similar nano-discs belonging to the D(3h) point group were designed and fabricated. Since the geometrical configuration of quadrumers is the same as planar trigonal molecules, nano-discs can play the roles of artificial atoms to study the coupling trends among them. The plasmonic properties of the n...

BACKGROUND Anterior lumbar disc replacements are used to restore spinal alignment and kinematics of a degenerated segment. Compared to fusion of the segment, disc replacements may prevent adjacent segment degeneration. To resolve some of the deficiencies of anterior lumbar arthroplasty, such as the approach itself, difficulty of revision, and postoperative facet pain, 360° motion preservation s...

ABSTRACT We examine the spatial distribution and orbital pole correlations of satellites in a suite zoom-in high-resolution dissipationless simulations Milky Way (MW)-sized haloes. use measured to estimate incidence satellite configurations as flattened correlated their system MW. confirm that this is sensitive radial subhaloes thereby processes affect it, such artificial disruption due numeric...