World Neurosurg
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Multicenter Study
A New Type of Spinal Epidural Arteriovenous Fistulas Causes Spinal Epidural Hemorrhage: An Analysis of Five Cases and Natural History Consideration.
Spinal epidural arteriovenous fistulas (SEDAVFs) are peculiar and poorly understood lesions with a poorly understood natural history. They usually are subclassified into 2 types according to their drainage components. This study aimed to describe a new type of SEDAVFs that is featured with a unique drainage pattern and present our natural history hypothesis of SEDAVFs. ⋯ Our study reported a special type of hemorrhagic SEDAVF without an intradural drainage component or epidural mass effect. The key diagnostic clue was early opacification of spinal epidural venous plexus on spinal angiogram. We believe SEDAVFs may form at an early age and gradually develop with time. Different types of SEDAVFs may represent different developing stages of one disease, and our type may represent the early stage of SEDAVFs.
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To provide a simple and reliable method for the diagnosis of ventriculoperitoneal shunt malfunction. ⋯ The proposed method is reliable, safe, and relatively simple for the diagnosis of ventriculoperitoneal shunt malfunction and provides a reference for treatment.
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Despite the increasing awareness of scientific fraud, no attempt has been made to assess its prevalence in neurosurgery. The aim of our review was to assess the chronologic trend, reasons, research type/design, and country of origin of retracted neurosurgical publications. ⋯ Retractions of neurosurgical publications are increasing significantly, mostly because of issues of academic integrity, including duplicate publishing and plagiarism. Implementation of more transparent data-sharing repositories and thorough screening of data before manuscript submission, as well as additional educational programs for new researchers, may help mitigate these issues in the future.
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It is unclear whether publicly reported benchmarks correlate with quality of physicians and institutions. We investigated the association of patient satisfaction measures from a public reporting platform with performance of neurosurgeons in New York State. ⋯ Merging a comprehensive all-payer cohort of neurosurgery patients in New York State with data from the Hospital Compare website, we observed an association of superior hospital-level patient satisfaction measures with objective performance of individual neurosurgeons in the corresponding hospitals.
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In this study we compared the effects of early tracheostomy (ET) versus late tracheostomy on traumatic brain injury (TBI)-related outcomes and prognosis. ⋯ Despite previous concern regarding increased mortality rates among patients who undergo ET, performing a tracheostomy for patients with severe TBI <6 days after their hospital admission, in addition to decreasing hospital and intensive care unit stays, will improve patient prognosis.