BACKGROUND Risk scoring system for thoracic surgery patients have not been widely used, as of recently. We tried to forge a risk scoring system that predicts the risk of postoperative complications in patients undergoing major thoracic surgery. We used a prolonged ICU stay as a representative of postoperative complications and tested various possible risk factors for its relation. METHODS Dat...

Open stent grafting is an alternative treatment for extensive thoracic aortic replacement. However, this procedure is associated with a high incidence of spinal cord injury, which has limited its application. Multiple factors have been suggested to explain the risk of spinal cord injury, including deep delivery of the stent graft, history of operation of the downstream aorta, and postoperative ...

BACKGROUND Improvised explosive devices are a common feature of recent asymmetric conflicts and there is a persistent landmine threat to military and humanitarian personnel. Assessment of injury risk to the spine in vehicles subjected to explosions was conducted using a standardized model, the Dynamic Response Index (DRI). However, the DRI was intended for evaluating aircraft ejection seats and...

A prospective study of 110 patients was carried out to determine the pathogenic significance of trauma to the upper body in the development of neural compressive irritation at the thoracic outlet. Twenty-nine patients were reviewed as cervical strain injuries (N group), 25 patients as probable neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome (NTOS) (PT group), 39 patients as definite NTOS (T group), and 17 ...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW This review will analyze the risk factors of acute lung injury (ALI) in patients undergoing thoracic surgery. Evidence for the occurrence of lung injury following mechanical ventilation and one-lung ventilation (OLV) and the strategies to avoid it will also be discussed. RECENT FINDINGS Post-thoracotomy ALI has become one of the leading causes of operative death. The pathoge...

A53-year-old woman with coronary artery disease presented with dyspnea 4 days after aortic valve replacement and coronary artery revascularization with a left internal mammary graft to the left anterior descending coronary artery. Frontal chest radiography 8 days after surgery revealed a large left pleural effusion (Figure 1) that on needle aspiration was characterized grossly and chemically as...

A36-year-old male psychiatric nurse was stabbed in the back with a knife by a patient suffering from acute psychosis. After initial treatment in an outside hospital, he was transferred in stable cardiopulmonary condition to our department because a lung injury was suspected (Figure 1). Computed tomography performed while the knife was still in place showed that the blade had penetrated the prox...

STUDY DESIGN Retrospective. OBJECTIVE With approximately 10,000 new spinal cord injury (SCI) patients in the United States each year, predicting public health outcomes is an important public health concern. Combining all regions of the spine in SCI trials may be misleading if the lumbar and sacral regions (conus) have a neurologic improvement at different rates than the thoracic or thoracolum...

BACKGROUND The mechanism and pattern of vascular injury vary between different populations. The commonest mechanism of vascular injury in civilian practice is road traffic collisions. We aimed to prospectively study the incidence, detailed mechanism and anatomical distribution of hospitalized vascular trauma patients following road traffic collisions in a high-income developing country. METHO...