Spine
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A retrospective review of surgical outcomes in adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis. ⋯ Overweight adolescents (BMI % >or=85) had a greater thoracic kyphosis before surgery compared with their healthy weight peers. Body mass, however, did not affect the ability to achieve coronal or sagittal scoliotic deformity correction, and did not increase perioperative morbidity or mortality. These findings were either influenced by the small sample size of this cohort, or because the comorbidities responsible for increased perioperative complications in adults, had not yet developed in this adolescent population.
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Comparative Study Controlled Clinical Trial
Quantitative analysis of back muscle degeneration in the patients with the degenerative lumbar flat back using a digital image analysis: comparison with the normal controls.
The degree of back muscle degeneration was quantified in patients with a degenerative lumbar flat back and a normal control group by magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and a digital image analysis technique. ⋯ T2 weighted MR Image analysis of the paravertebral back muscles in patients with degenerative lumbar flat back showed significant fat infiltration compared with those in the normal control using digital image analysis. Digital image analysis of the paravertebral back muscles is a useful tool for measuring the degree of paravertebral back muscle degeneration.
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Interrupted time series. ⋯ Health status of people with whiplash improved after legislative change. Design of compensation schemes should be undertaken with the understanding that the scheme structure may have substantial effects on the long-term health of injured people.
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Disc tissue was removed at surgery from 9 patients with discogenic pain and 9 deformity patients with scoliosis undergoing anterior and posterior spinal fusion. These samples were then analyzed using ex vivo proton high resolution magic angle spinning (HR-MAS) NMR spectroscopy to produce metabolic profiles for comparison between the 2 patient groups. ⋯ Our results suggest that spectroscopic markers of proteoglycan, collagen, and lactate may serve as metabolic markers of discogenic back pain. These results provide a further basis of the potential to develop in vivo MR spectroscopy for the investigation of discogenic back pain.
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The effects of a low, local dose of a tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) inhibitor on neuropathic pain behaviors in a rat chronic constriction injury model were evaluated. ⋯ This preclinical study indicates that delivering TNF-alpha inhibitors by means of a locally administered polymeric formulation provides long-lasting analgesia in an inflammatory neuropathic pain model.