INTRODUCTION Ventral cervical spinal epidural abscess is a very rare clinical condition with a relatively high morbidity and mortality. Due to the paucity of reported cases there is heterogeneity and no clear "gold standard" in the treatment of these patients. OBJECTIVE The authors report four consecutive patients with ventral cervical spinal epidural abscess treated with anterior cervical di...

Adjacent segmental degeneration (ASD) is a major issue after pedicular fixation. This study examined the degeneration of the adjacent levels due to the insertion of the Wallis interspinous stabilization system compared with discectomy, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).Thirty-eight patients diagnosed with lumbar degeneration disorders at L4-L5 were reviewed: 19 patients underwent discectom...

OBJECTIVE The microendoscopic discectomy (MED) technique was initially developed in 1997 to treat herniated lumbar disc disease. Since then, thousands of cases have been successfully performed at more than 500 institutions. This article discusses the technical aspects of this procedure and presents a consecutive case series. METHODS A total of 150 consecutive patients underwent MED. MED is pe...

The optimal time for lumbar discectomy due to sciatica is still under discussion. We examined a group of 177 consecutive patients with lumbar disc herniation, who underwent lumbar discectomy. According to the duration of the sciatica, patients were divided into 3 groups: 31 (17.5%) patient with a duration of sciatica from 0 to 3 months, 82 (46.3%) patients with a duration from 4 to 10 months, a...

The percutaneous absorption of hydrocortisone and testosterone was studied following their application to the vulvar and ventral forearm regions of pre- and post-menopausal women. Percutaneous absorption of hydrocortisone was significantly greater in vulvar skin than forearm skin in both pre- and post-menopausal women (P < 0.05, respectively), whereas the percutaneous absorption of testosterone...

" _ ~~~The Chemist;ry of RodVision: _ ~George WaZld.....287 Technical Papers The Informational Capacity of the Human Eye: Homer Jacobson ............... 292 The Percutaneous Absorption of Water: Alna S. Szczev4iak, Henry Sherman, and Robert S. Harrisu. . 293 Social Fitness vesus Reproductive Fitness: S. C. Reed and J. D. Palm ...... .. . . 294 A Rich Sourc of Y-Carotene: B. L. Smits andHE.L Mit...

AIM To determine the efficacy, safety, and clinical value of a novel surgical procedure involving the blunt perforation of the ligamentum flavum (LF) during endoscopic interlaminar lumbar discectomy. MATERIAL AND METHODS This was a prospective study of 50 patients (27 males, 17-51 years of age) undergoing lumbar discectomy for single segment L4/L5 or L5/S1 disk herniation were grouped into th...

BACKGROUND AND AIM Many surgical techniques are used for the treatment of cervical myelopathy and radiculopathy due to spondylosis or disc herniation. The aim of this article is to evaluate and to compare the long term outcomes of 1. anterior cervical discectomy (ACD), 2. anterior cervical discectomy with fusion (ACDF) and 3. anterior cervical discectomy with total disc replacement (TDR) in ord...

OBJECTIVE To determine the long-term follow-up of the various operations for lumbar disc herniation in a large patient population. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Patients who had operations for lumbar disc herniation (microdiscectomy, endoscopic microdiscectomy and the 'classical operation', i.e. laminectomy/laminotomy with discectomy) were collected from the world literature. Patients who had follow-u...