The long-standing answer has been that sneezing is a reflex. When irritants — such as germs, dust, pollen, animal dander, or pollutants, just to name just a few — infiltrate the nose lining, the brain sends out a signal to get rid of it. That triggers a deep breath, which gets held in the lungs.

Massive bone defects (>8 cm) will not unite without an additional intervention. They require a predictable, durable, and efficient method to regrow bone. The Ilizarov method of tension stress, or distraction osteogenesis, first involves a low-energy osteotomy1 - 5. The bone segments are then pulled apart, most often using an external device at a specific rate and rhythm (distraction phase), after which the newly formed bone (the regenerate) requires time for consolidation. The consolidation phase is variable and usually requires a substantially greater amount of time before the external device can be removed. Our technique of tibial bone transport over an intramedullary nail using cable and pulleys combines internal and external fixation, allowing the external fixator to be removed at the end of the distraction phase. This increases the efficiency of limb reconstruction and decreases the external-fixator-associated complications.

For blunt trauma patients lying supine, drains should be placed anteriorly in the chest. This pevents a tension pneumothorax developing if the chest tube is blocked by dependent lung tissue. Normal movement of the lungs will allow drainage of a basal haemothorax through an anterior chest tube

Papillary fibroelastoma is the third most common primary tumor of the heart and is most likely to involve the cardiac valves. Like myxomas, they arise from the endocardium in most patients and since these tumors are often incidental findings at echocardiography or autopsy, the true incidence is difficult to estimate. Most patients are older than 60 years, which also contrasts with myxomas. Papillary fibroelastomas can embolize, leading to severe neurological complications and therefore, surgical removal is advised, although there is controversy regarding small incidental lesions and the need for surgery.

Treatment consists of diet modifications and laxatives A high-fiber diet can be effective, along with over-the-counter medications, such as stool softeners. In some cases, a medical procedure to remove the hemorrhoid may be needed to provide relief.

What Is It? Your wisdom teeth (third molars) usually start to erupt (enter your mouth) during the late teen years. Sometimes, there's not enough room for them. They may come into your mouth partially or not at all. Partial eruption of a wisdom tooth can create a flap of gum tissue next to the tooth. The flap can trap bits of food and debris. It can turn into a hotbed for bacteria. It's called pericoronitis if the tissue around the tooth becomes inflamed. Pericoronitis also can occur around a wisdom tooth that is still completely under the gums. Symptoms Symptoms include: Painful, swollen gum tissue in the area of the affected tooth. It can be difficult to bite down comfortably without catching the swollen tissue between your teeth. A bad smell or taste in the mouth Discharge of pus from the gum near the tooth More serious symptoms include: Swollen lymph nodes under your chin (the submandibular nodes) Muscle spasms in the jaw Swelling on the affected side of the face Diagnosis Usually, someone with pericoronitis goes to the dentist, complaining of pain in the area of the back tooth. Pericoronitis is diagnosed during the clinical exam. Your dentist will see inflamed gum tissue in the area of the unerupted or partly erupted wisdom tooth. The gums may be red, swollen or draining fluid or pus. Expected Duration Pericoronitis can be managed with antibiotics and warm salt water rinses. It goes away in about one week. However, it can return. This is likely to happen if the tooth does not completely enter the mouth and food and bacteria keep building up under the gum. Prevention You can help to prevent pericoronitis by brushing any erupting wisdom tooth and flossing around it. This will help make sure that food and bacteria do not build up under the gums. However, sometimes these steps do not work. If pericoronitis returns, you may need to have the flap of gum tissue removed. In some cases, the flap of tissue grows back and the wisdom tooth will need to be extracted. Treatment Pericoronitis can be tricky to treat. That's because the flap of gum tissue won't go away until the wisdom tooth emerges naturally, the tissue is removed or the tooth is removed. Your dentist will clean the area thoroughly by rinsing under the flap with water to remove bits of food and pus. Your dentist also may need to remove damaged tissue. If the area is infected, you'll most likely be given antibiotics. Your dentist will explain how to keep the area clean, which is the best way to prevent the problem from returning. This usually involves brushing and flossing daily and rinsing your mouth with water several times a day. These steps will help to prevent food from getting stuck under the gum flap. In some cases, your dentist may suggest removing the erupting tooth. Or the dentist may want to remove the tooth above it, which bites down on the gum below. If your dentist thinks the tooth may erupt fully into the mouth without problems, he or she may leave it alone. However, if pericoronitis comes back, the tooth may be extracted. Pericoronitis that causes symptoms should be treated as soon as possible. If it is not, the infection can spread to other areas of your mouth. The most severe cases are treated in a hospital. They sometimes require intravenous antibiotics and surgery. When To Call a Professional If you have symptoms of pericoronitis, make an appointment to see your dentist. If your wisdom teeth are coming in, visit your dentist at least twice a year for regular checkups. During those visits, the dentist can check on the progress of your wisdom teeth. Prognosis Pericoronitis does not cause any long-term effects. If the affected tooth is removed or erupts fully into the mouth, the condition cannot return.

our dentist says it's time to remove your wisdom teeth. He may refer you to an oral surgeon, who will do the procedure in his office. It should only take a few days for you to heal and feel back to normal.

The bladder is a hollow organ in the lower abdomen (pelvis). It collects and stores urine produced by the kidneys. The bladder is connected to the kidneys by a tube from each kidney called a ureter. When the bladder reaches its capacity of urine, the bladder wall contracts, although adults have voluntary control over the timing of this contraction. At the same time, a urinary control muscle (sphincter) in the urethra relaxes. The urine is then expelled from the bladder. The urine flows through a narrow tube called the urethra and leaves the body. This process is called urination, or micturition.

Maneuver to Correct Shoulder Dystocia Birth

There are several approaches to scoliosis surgery, but all use modern instrumentation systems in which hooks and screws are applied to the spine to anchor long rods. The rods are then used to reduce and hold the spine while bone that is added fuses together with existing bone.

Knee osteotomy is commonly used to realign your knee structure if you have arthritic damage on only one side of your knee. The goal is to shift your body weight off the damaged area to the other side of your knee, where the cartilage is still healthy. When surgeons remove a wedge of your shinbone from underneath the healthy side of your knee, the shinbone and thighbone can bend away from the damaged cartilage. Imagine the hinges on a door. When the door is shut, the hinges are flush against the wall. As the door swings open, one side of the door remains pressed against the wall as space opens up on the other side. Removing just a small wedge of bone can "swing" your knee open, pressing the healthy tissue together as space opens up between the thighbone and shinbone on the damaged side so that the arthritic surfaces do not rub against each other. Osteotomy is also used as an alternative treatment to total knee replacement in younger and active patients. Because prosthetic knees may wear out over time, an osteotomy procedure can enable younger, active osteoarthritis patients to continue using the healthy portion of their knee. The procedure can delay the need for a total knee replacement for up to ten years.

WHAT IS BURN DEBRIDEMENT? A burn is damage to body tissues caused by sunlight, heat, fire, electricity, friction, radiation, chemicals, hot water or steam. Burns may become infected. Infected burns and the swelling that happens as a result can cause severe damage to the organs and tissues underneath the burned area by putting pressure on the tissues, nerves, and blood vessels. To allow healthy tissue to heal and to prevent more damage or infection, burned tissue is removed in a procedure called burn debridement. Burn debridement can be done by several different methods. They include surgical, chemical, mechanical, or autolytic tissue removal. Debridement may need to be done multiple times as the burned area heals.

Bullae resection for right pneumothrax via VATS

t’s the brain, after all, that devises experiments and interprets their results. How the brain perceives, how it makes decisions and judgments, and how those judgments can go awry are at least as important to science as knowing the intricacies of nonbiotic experimental machinery. And as any brain scientist will tell you, there’s still a long way to go before understanding the brain will get crossed off science’s to-do list. But there has been progress. A recent special issue of the journal Neuron offers a convenient set of “perspective” papers exploring the current state of understanding of the brain’s inner workings. Those papers show that a lot is known. But at the same time they emphasize that there’s a lot we don’t know.

When foreign organisms such as bacteria enter the body, the immune system sends white blood cells to fight the infection. This causes swelling (inflammation) at the site of infection and the death of nearby tissue, creating a hole called a cavity, which fills with pus to form an abscess.

Breast implants do not last forever, and during its lifetime, it may rupture. Dr. Linder, Beverly Hills breast surgeon specialist, breaks down how removing breast implants works. To learn more about Dr. Stuart Linder and his expertise, Visit: www.drlinder.com

Splenectomy for massive splenomegaly (>1500 g) provides palliation but is associated with a high rate of perioperative complications in a population of patients with advanced hematological malignancies. Predictive factors for survival and whether the palliative goals are achieved in the long-term are not well defined.

A subdural hematoma is a collection of blood outside the brain. Subdural hematomas are usually caused by severe head injuries. The bleeding and increased pressure on the brain from a subdural hematoma can be life-threatening.

The Epley maneuver or repositioning maneuver is a maneuver used to treat benign paroxysmal positional vertigo of the posterior or anterior canals

What is gestational trophoblastic disease? Cancer starts when cells in the body begin to grow out of control. Cells in nearly any part of the body can become cancer, and can spread to other areas of the body. To learn more about how cancers start and spread, see What Is Cancer? Gestational trophoblastic (jeh-STAY-shuh-nul troh-fuh-BLAS-tik) disease (GTD) is a group of rare tumors that involve abnormal growth of cells inside a woman's uterus. GTD does not develop from cells of the uterus like cervical cancer or endometrial (uterine lining) cancer do. Instead, these tumors start in the cells that would normally develop into the placenta during pregnancy. (The term gestational refers to pregnancy.) GTD begins in the layer of cells called the trophoblast (troh-fuh-BLAST) that normally surrounds an embryo. (Tropho- means nutrition, and -blast means bud or early developmental cell.) Early in normal development, the cells of the trophoblast form tiny, finger-like projections known as villi. The villi grow into the lining of the uterus. In time, the trophoblast layer develops into the placenta, the organ that protects and nourishes the growing fetus.