BACKGROUND We sought to evaluate the role of balloon angioplasty as the primary modality in the management of vein graft stenoses. METHODS Patients who underwent infrainguinal vein graft bypass from January 2002 to December 2007 were enrolled into a surveillance program. Grafts which developed critical stenoses were identified and underwent urgent angiography with a view to angioplasty of the...

The "Docking Plus" technique for elbow ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) surgery is described in the following text and video. Depite the general success of UCL surgery, significant rates of retear and failure of return to competition persist. Hypothesized reasons for UCL surgery failure include insufficient graft strength (midsubstance tears), insufficient graft tensioning (functional UCL insuff...

The heterotopic cervical heart transplantation in mice is a valuable tool in transplant and cardiovascular research. The cuff technique greatly simplifies this model by avoiding challenging suture anastomoses of small vessels thereby reducing warm ischemia time. In comparison to abdominal graft implantation the cervical model is less invasive and the implanted graft is easily accessible for fur...

Pancreas graft survival has continuously improved over the years to become a main treatment option of uncontrolled complicated diabetes. Rejection remains the major challenge as it often goes unnoticed until severe damage of the graft manifests itself by elevated blood sugar. Pancreas enzymes monitoring in the blood and in the urine is a sensitive marker of rejection but lack of specificity. Bi...

AIMS To demonstrate success with immediate split-skin graft application over Matriderm dermal matrix in a difficult neck contracture release. METHODS An aggressive neck contracture release, accompanied by complete platysmectomy, was followed by application of Matriderm, split-skin graft, Mepitel, and vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) dressing. RESULTS At VAC removal (day 7), graft take was almo...

RESULTS: The majority of flaps were for lower extremity trauma wounds (74), followed by upper extremity trauma wounds (8), scalp tumor defects (4), and one torso wound. There were 7 flap losses, but of these, 4 were due to noncompliance with postoperative immobilization/elevation orders; excluding these 4 failures for which the NPD was clearly not a factor, the flap success rate was 96.4%. Skin...

RESULTS: The majority of flaps were for lower extremity trauma wounds (74), followed by upper extremity trauma wounds (8), scalp tumor defects (4), and one torso wound. There were 7 flap losses, but of these, 4 were due to noncompliance with postoperative immobilization/elevation orders; excluding these 4 failures for which the NPD was clearly not a factor, the flap success rate was 96.4%. Skin...

Rejection is the major cause of graft failure, and if the injury to the tubules and glomeruli is severe, the kidney may not recover. It is therefore important to diagnose acute rejection as soon as possible to institute prompt antirejection therapy. Generally, the success with which rejection can be reversed by immunosuppressive agents determines the chance of long-term success of the transplan...

Regardless of operator expertise and the development of novel interventional devices, Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) for Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO) is still challenging, but has contributed to higher procedural success rates in the current era of rapid change[1,2]. Previous studies indicated that a history of Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery (CABG) impacts the procedure success...

Nowadays, the use of synthetic grafts to bypass occluded arterial sections is common practice in clinics and hospitals. Success has been achieved in cases involving large diameter blood vessels. However, for arteries with a diameter less than 5 mm, the success rates for synthetic grafts have been low mainly due to intimal hyperplasia formation at anastomoses. The postulated reasons affecting gr...