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The colonoscope is slowly withdrawn during this screening colonoscopy down from the transverse colon, back around the splenic flexure, and down the descending colon, and reveals this finding a colonic diverticula. Diverticulosis is a common, acquired, age-related occurrence affecting over 50% of the... western adult population over the age of 50. It is seen rarely in Africa and Asia where the dietary fiber content is traditionally higher. Thus most investigators feel that low fiber diets are related to the development of this condition. Ironically, colonic diverticula are not true diverticula but rather pseudodiverticula in that the sac includes layers of the mucosa and submucosa that push through rather than include the outer muscular layer. As with the small bowel the colon has an inner circular muscular layer, but the outer longitudinal layer is composed of three bands of muscle that run the length of the colon known as teniae. Diverticula occur in rows between the mesenteric and two antimesenteric teniae where the colonic wall is further weakened by the defect caused by the perforating vasa recti artery which supplies the colonic mucosa. Occasionally, the anatomic propensity of diverticula to form in rows is quite apparent as seen when this clip is replayed in slow motion. Most often, however, the arrangement of the diverticula appears random due to the angulation of the bowel and thickening of the semi lunar folds. The conditions that cause these pulsion diverticula are not know with certainty but may include high intrahaustral pressures, muscular hypertrophy, and age related alterations in collagen cross linking. Diverticula can bleed or can abscess and perforate. The incidence of diverticulitis or diverticular bleeding is in the range of 1:1,000 patients with diverticulosis.
The pelvic floor or pelvic diaphragm is composed of muscle fibers of the levator ani, the coccygeus, and associated connective tissue which span the area underneath the pelvis. The pelvic diaphragm is a muscular partition formed by the levatores ani and coccygei, with which may be included the parietal pelvic fascia on their upper and lower aspects. The pelvic floor separates the pelvic cavity above from the perineal region (including perineum) below.
The right and left levator ani lie almost horizontally in the floor of the pelvis, separated by a narrow gap that transmits the urethra, vagina, and anal canal. The levator ani is usually considered in three parts: pubococcygeus, puborectalis, and iliococcygeus. The pubococcygeus, the main part of the levator, runs backward from the body of the pubis toward the coccyx and may be damaged during parturition. Some fibers are inserted into the prostate, urethra, and vagina. The right and left puborectalis unite behind the anorectal junction to form a muscular sling . Some regard them as a part of the sphincter ani externus. The iliococcygeus, the most posterior part of the levator ani, is often poorly developed.
The coccygeus, situated behind the levator ani and frequently tendinous as much as muscular, extends from the ischial spine to the lateral margin of the sacrum and coccyx.
The pelvic cavity of the true pelvis has the pelvic floor as its inferior border (and the pelvic brim as its superior border.) The perineum has the pelvic floor as its superior border.
Some sources do not consider “pelvic floor” and “pelvic diaphragm” to be identical, with the “diaphragm” consisting of only the levator ani and coccygeus, while the “floor” also includes the perineal membrane and deep perineal pouch. However, other sources include the fascia as part of the diaphragm. In practice, the two terms are often used interchangeably.
Inferiorly, the pelvic floor extends into the anal triangle.
Alexandra J. Golby, MD, Director, Image-guided Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, discusses technological advancements to improve the precision of surgery to remove brain tumors.
It’s estimated that each year nearly 80,000 people are diagnosed with primary brain tumors and 100,000 with metastatic brain tumors. Nearly everybody is at risk for developing a brain tumor. Brain tumors can affect people from childhood to the last years of their lives. Men are slightly more affected than women and the causes of most brain tumors are not known.
There are a number of unique challenges in treating brain tumors. One challenge is that primary tumors can have indistinct margins that are difficult to see. Another challenge is that the tissue around a brain tumor is uniquely important and may impact things like language, visual and motor function.
The AMIGO Suite, opened in 2011 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is the Advanced Multimodality Image Guided Operating Suite. It's an NIH-funded national center which was developed with the goal of translating technological advances into improvements in surgical and interventional care for patients. In the AMIGO Suite, there is an intraoperative MRI scanner which can be brought in and out of the operating room during surgery to help surgeons visualize a patient’s tumor better.
Image-guided surgery uses the information obtained from advanced imaging and translates that into the planning and execution of surgery by acquiring high resolution and specialty structural images of the brain and also functional images of the brain. These images can be registered to one another and then to the patient's head during surgery. This allows surgeons to pinpoint the location of the tumor as well as the areas that we would like to preserve, areas that serve critical brain functions are located.
One of the big challenges, even with image-guided surgery, is that as we perform the surgery, the configuration of the brain is changing, and we call that brain shift. And it's due to changes in the brain itself and also as we remove tissue, things are constantly shifting and moving. When we're talking about doing brain tumor surgery, a few millimeters of movement can be a big difference. How to measure and track brain shift is an important area of research and a number of technologies are being studied to understand how to measure brain shift during surgery.
The development of various intraoperative imaging technologies allows surgeons to provide the most accurate surgical treatment for each individual patient.
Learn more about precision brain surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital:
https://www.brighamandwomens.o....rg/neurosurgery/brai