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James Burke Fine DMD by James Burke Fine DMD Periodontal disease is a gum condition caused by the buildup of bacteria along and below the teeth's gumline. Acute forms are usually associated with pain from oral tissue gone bad – also known as necrotizing gingivitis or trench mouth – whereas chronic forms are painless but have a more long-term impact on your overall, systemic health. The most common chronic form is gingivitis, whose bleeding, puffiness and redness comes from an organized mass of bacteria called plaque. You may know it can advance into a form called periodontitis. If these conditions are left untreated, however, it can also lead to infections within other parts of the body, such as the lungs.
Microsurgical bipolar cautery tonsillectomy compares favorably with traditional techniques in terms of intraoperative bleeding, postoperative pain, otalgia, and hemorrhage. This technique combines the hemostatic advantage of cautery dissection, the excellent visualization achieved by a microscope, and, with the use of a video, greatly improves the physician's ability to teach how to perform a tonsillectomy.
The epididymis is a long coiled tube that lies above and behind each testicle. The epididymis collects and transports sperm from the testis to the vas deferens (tubes that transport sperm to the urethra). An epididymal cyst is a cyst-like mass in the epididymis that contains clear fluid. Typically, epididymal cysts and spermatoceles do not cause symptoms. When discovered, the epididymal cyst is usually about the size of a pea and feels separate from the top of the testis. Spermatoceles typically arise from the head of the epididymis, and are felt on the top portion of the testicle. Epididymal cysts and spermatoceles are often incidental findings on testicular self-examination or routine physical examination. It is important that any mass noted in the scrotum be examined by a urologist in order to obtain an accurate diagnosis, especially a mass on the testicle itself. Our team in the Division of Urology will typically be able to confirm the diagnosis on physical exam. However, a scrotal ultrasound may also be used in order to rule out other conditions.
Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), in which there is a persistent communication between the descending thoracic aorta and the pulmonary artery that results from failure of normal physiologic closure of the fetal ductus (see image below), is one of the more common congenital heart defects.
Purpose: To evaluate the results of LASIK and IntraLASIK treatment in myopic patients with nystagmus. Methods: Eight patients with congenital nystagmus (16 eyes), from 23 to 49 years of age, underwent LASIK surgery. Corneal flaps were created using either the Hansatome microkeratome or the Intral...ase femtosecond laser. The ablations were performed with the Bausch & Lomb excimer laser with an active tracking system. In some patients, the eyes were fixated with forceps or a fixation ring during the laser ablation. Results: The refractive errors were corrected in all cases. There was no decentration or loss of best corrected visual acuity greater than 1 line. In 56% of the eyes, the post-operative uncorrected visual acuity was better than the best spectacle corrected-visual acuity (BSCVA). 62.5% of the eyes improved their BSCVA. The overall visual performance was improved in all the patients. One patient that did not not drive before become eligible to get a driver license after the surgery. Conclusions: Selected patients with myopia and congenital nystagmus may benefit from laser refractive surgery. Laser refractive surgery may be safely and accurately performed by using either the Hansatome microkeratome or the Intralase femtosecond laser and an active tracking system with or without mechanical fixation. Certain patients improve their BSCVA post-operatively.
A penile prosthesis is another treatment option for men with erectile dysfunction (ED). These devices are either malleable or inflatable. The simplest type of prosthesis consists of a pair of malleable (bendable) rods surgically implanted within the erection chambers of the penis. With this type of implant the penis is always semi-rigid and merely needs to be lifted or adjusted into the erect position to initiate sex. Today, many men choose a hydraulic, inflatable prosthesis, which allows a man to have an erection whenever he chooses and is much easier to conceal. It is also more natural.
At each level of the spine, there is a disc space in the front and paired facet joints in the back. Working together, these structures define a motion segment (Fig. 1A). Back pain may result when injury or degenerative changes allow abnormal movement of the vertebrae to rub against one another, known as an unstable motion segment (Fig. 1B). Two vertebrae need to be fused to stop the motion at one segment. For example, an L4-L5 fusion is a one-level spinal fusion (Fig. 1C). A two-level fusion joins three vertebrae together and so on.
ThermiVa is a non-surgical vaginal tightening treatment for women who want to reclaim what childbirth or aging may have taken away. Using the same technology that’s used in ThermiTight and ThermiSmooth, radiofrequency energy is sent to the desired area (internally or externally), heating the tissue and stimulating the body’s own collagen. ThermiVa is performed in three treatments over the course of three months.
The inflatable penile prosthesis consists of two attached cylinders -- a reservoir and a pump -- which are placed surgically in the body. The two cylinders are inserted in the penis and connected by tubing to a separate reservoir of saline. The reservoir is implanted under the rectus muscles in the lower abdomen. The Coloplast Titan Touch inflatable penile prosthesis is a self-contained, fluid-filled system made from Bioflex and silicone.
Typically, breast reconstruction takes place during or soon after mastectomy, and in some cases, lumpectomy. Breast reconstruction also can be done many months or even years after mastectomy or lumpectomy. During reconstruction, a plastic surgeon creates a breast shape using an artificial implant (implant reconstruction), a flap of tissue from another place on your body (autologous reconstruction), or both.
A water birth means at least part of your labor, delivery, or both happen while you’re in a birth pool filled with warm water. It can take place in a hospital, a birthing center, or at home. A doctor, nurse-midwife, or midwife helps you through it. In the U.S., some birthing centers and hospitals offer water births. Birthing centers are medical facilities that offer a more homelike setting than a hospital and more natural options for women having babies. The use of a birthing pool during the first stage of labor might: Help ease pain Keep you from needing anesthesia Speed up your labor The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), which sets guidelines for pregnancy and childbirth care in the U.S., says a water birth during the first stage of labor may have some benefits but delivering your baby underwater should be considered an experimental procedure with risks. The first stage is from when contractions start until your cervix is fully dilated.
The hepatitis E virus, responsible for major epidemics of viral hepatitis in subtropical and tropical countries, was cloned only 7 years ago.1 Hepatitis E was found to belong to the family of Caliciviridae, which includes the Norwalk virus—a common cause of gastroenteritis in humans—and consists of a single, plus-strand RNA genome of approximately 7.2 kb without an envelope (Fig. 1). The virus contains at least three open reading frames encoding viral proteins against which antibodies are made on exposure. These antibodies, especially those against the capsid protein derived from the second open reading frame2 and a protein of unknown function derived from the third open reading frame, are detected by currently available serologic assays. Retrospective studies on stored sera of past epidemics of viral hepatitis in Mexico, Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, and Borneo have revealed that all were caused by strains of hepatitis E. In addition, hepatitis E was found to be responsible for the hepatitis epidemic in the southern part of Xinjiang, China, in which 120,000 persons became infected between September 1986 and April 1988.3 Hepatitis E predominantly affects young adults (15 to 40 years old). The symptoms of hepatitis E are similar to those of hepatitis A. Frequently, a prodrome consisting of anorexia, nausea, low-grade fever, and right upper abdominal pain is present 3 to 7 days before jaundice develops. Aminotransferase levels peak (usually between 1,000 and 2,000 U/L) near the onset of symptoms; bilirubin levels (10 to 20 mg/dL) peak later. Jaundice usually resolves after 1 to 2 weeks. In about 10% of cases, the disease is fulminant—especially in pregnant women, among whom mortality rates as high as 20% due to hemorrhagic and thrombotic complications have been reported. No evidence has suggested that hepatitis E can cause chronic infection. Transmission is by the fecal-oral route, predominantly through fecally contaminated drinking water supplies. In addition, however, preliminary reports have suggested transmission of the hepatitis E virus through blood transfusions. Volunteer studies confirmed the presence of the virus in serum and feces before and during clinical disease.4 The virus is shed into feces approximately 1 week before symptoms develop. The incubation period varies from 2 to 9 weeks (mean duration, approximately 45 days). Until now, a few reports had described symptomatic hepatitis E acquired in Europe;5, 6 all patients with symptomatic hepatitis E in the United States were travelers returning from Mexico, Africa, or the Far East, in whom hepatitis E developed after their return home.7 In this issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings (pages 1133 to 1136), Kwo and associates describe a case of hepatitis E in a man who had not left the United States during the previous 10 years. Specific serologic tests for hepatitis E virus IgG (enzyme immunoassays and a fluorescent antibody blocking assay) and IgM8 (US strain-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with use of synthetic polypeptides deduced from the viral genome, as shown in Figure 1), developed at Abbott Laboratories (IgG and IgM) as well as at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (IgG), were used to prove that the patient indeed had acute hepatitis E. Researchers at Abbott Laboratories have prepared a report that describes most of the viral genome in this patient (Fig. I).8 Their results are interesting because this strain from the United States differs considerably from hepatitis E strains isolated in Mexico, Burma, Pakistan, or China. Furthermore, the sequence of the US strain is highly homologous (98% and 94% homology at the amino acid level to the second and third open reading frames, respectively) to a recently isolated hepatitis E strain from American swine.9 This finding suggests that, in the United States, hepatitis E is a zoonosis with the swine population as one of its hosts. This relationship would confirm earlier studies in Asia, where swine were also found to carry variants of the hepatitis E virus.10 Why are these two recent discoveries important for medicine in the United States? First, other sporadic, locally acquired cases of acute hepatitis may be caused by hepatitis E. Second, these back-to-back discoveries strongly suggest that a common natural host for hepatitis E is present in countries with more moderate climates. Because swine do not seem to experience any symptoms associated with infection and because symptoms in humans can be minor or absent, we now may also have an explanation for the 1 to 2% of positive hepatitis E serologic results in blood donors in the United States,11 Netherlands,12 and Italy,6 countries with large swine staples. Clearly, more research needs to be done to confirm this hypothesis. Third, in countries with more moderate climates, hepatitis E may often result in a subclinical infection. Is this variation in manifestation due to less virulent strains, and do sequence variations determine virulence? Fourth, swine may be used as an animal model for study of the disease as well as vaccine development.