Introduction
The Micronail
®
is a minimally invasive intramedullar titanium locking screw fixation for two-part dislocated extra-articular fractures and average displaced intra-articular fractures.
...Patients and methods
In a retrospective study we analyzed the outcome of 20 distal radius fractures in 18 patients (17 female, mean age 78 years), which were treated by Micronail
®
. Average follow-up time was 4 months. We describe the operative technique. All fractures were classified according to AO guidelines. We studied the radiologic and clinical outcome.
Results
According to the AO classification there were 12 A2, 3 A3, 1 B1, and 1 B3 fracture. Three patients had an antebrachii fracture. Mean American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score was 2.4. Eight patients had associated lesions. Average operative time was 58 min. All fractures healed without major loss of alignment. There were two major complications: one patient developed a carpal tunnel syndrome and one device secondary dislocated. With the use of the Micronail
®
, we found no infections or complications due to the insertion of the osteosynthesis materials. Patients experienced good to excellent results, on an analogue scale, in function of their wrist from the procedure. All patients had a good range of motion of the operated wrist; the difference between their two wrists was maximal 10° in all directions.
Conclusion
This intramedullary implant intends to minimize some of the disadvantages of other surgical options in the treatment of distal radius fracture; the Micronail
®
causes less tissue damage and has early load-carrying capacity. This minimally invasive technique seems suitable in selected, two-part dislocated extra-articular and average displaced intra-articular, distal radius fractures.
Manubriosternal dislocations are a rare entity and frequently associated with thoracic spine fractures and, in minority of cases, with cervical or thoracolumbar fractures.
Our case represents a ...38-year-old male who fell from a height resulting in multiple fractures, amongst others of the first lumbar vertebra. At primary survey and computed tomography scan no manubriosternal injury was apparent. After posterior stabilization of the thoracolumbar vertebrae a manubriosternal dislocation was identified and stabilized using plate-and-screw fixation.
Clinical findings of a manubriosternal dislocation are not always obvious, allowing them to be missed at initial assessment.
Manubriosternal dislocations can be missed at the initial investigation, even on cross-sectional imaging, and only become visible after spine stabilization because of the tight relationship between sternum and vertebrae in the thoracic cage. There is no unanimity in literature for surgical treatment of manubriosternal dislocations, although plate fixation is generally considered a safe and effective treatment option.
The scientific literature represents a rich source for retrieval of knowledge on associations between biomedical concepts such as genes, diseases and cellular processes. A commonly used method to ...establish relationships between biomedical concepts from literature is co-occurrence. Apart from its use in knowledge retrieval, the co-occurrence method is also well-suited to discover new, hidden relationships between biomedical concepts following a simple ABC-principle, in which A and C have no direct relationship, but are connected via shared B-intermediates. In this paper we describe CoPub Discovery, a tool that mines the literature for new relationships between biomedical concepts. Statistical analysis using ROC curves showed that CoPub Discovery performed well over a wide range of settings and keyword thesauri. We subsequently used CoPub Discovery to search for new relationships between genes, drugs, pathways and diseases. Several of the newly found relationships were validated using independent literature sources. In addition, new predicted relationships between compounds and cell proliferation were validated and confirmed experimentally in an in vitro cell proliferation assay. The results show that CoPub Discovery is able to identify novel associations between genes, drugs, pathways and diseases that have a high probability of being biologically valid. This makes CoPub Discovery a useful tool to unravel the mechanisms behind disease, to find novel drug targets, or to find novel applications for existing drugs.
The scientific literature represents a rich source for retrieval of knowledge on associations between biomedical concepts such as genes, diseases and cellular processes. A commonly used method to ...establish relationships between biomedical concepts from literature is co-occurrence. Apart from its use in knowledge retrieval, the co-occurrence method is also well-suited to discover new, hidden relationships between biomedical concepts following a simple ABC-principle, in which A and C have no direct relationship, but are connected via shared B-intermediates. In this paper we describe CoPub Discovery, a tool that mines the literature for new relationships between biomedical concepts. Statistical analysis using ROC curves showed that CoPub Discovery performed well over a wide range of settings and keyword thesauri. We subsequently used CoPub Discovery to search for new relationships between genes, drugs, pathways and diseases. Several of the newly found relationships were validated using independent literature sources. In addition, new predicted relationships between compounds and cell proliferation were validated and confirmed experimentally in an in vitro cell proliferation assay. The results show that CoPub Discovery is able to identify novel associations between genes, drugs, pathways and diseases that have a high probability of being biologically valid. This makes CoPub Discovery a useful tool to unravel the mechanisms behind disease, to find novel drug targets, or to find novel applications for existing drugs.
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