Surgical Procedures, Operative Commons^™

A Novel Signal Processing Method For Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring In Spinal Surgeries, Krishnatej Vedala

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring is an integral part of spinal surgeries and involves the recording of somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP). However, clinical application of IONM still requires anywhere between 200 to 2000 trials to obtain an SSEP signal, which is excessive and introduces a significant delay during surgery to detect a possible neurological damage. The aim of this study is to develop a means to obtain the SSEP using a much less, twelve number of recordings. The preliminary step involved was to distinguish the SSEP with the ongoing brain activity. We first establish that the brain activity is indeed quasi-stationary whereas …

An Assessment Of Novel Biodegradable Magnesium Alloys For Endovascular Biomaterial Applications, Dharam Persaud-Sharma

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Magnesium alloys have been widely explored as potential biomaterials, but several limitations to using these materials have prevented their widespread use, such as uncontrollable degradation kinetics which alter their mechanical properties. In an attempt to further the applicability of magnesium and its alloys for biomedical purposes, two novel magnesium alloys Mg-Zn-Cu and Mg-Zn-Se were developed with the expectation of improving upon the unfavorable qualities shown by similar magnesium based materials that have previously been explored. The overall performance of these novel magnesium alloys has been assessesed in three distinct phases of research: 1) analysing the mechanical properties of the as-cast …

Increased Rate Of Cholecystectomies Performed With Doubtful Or No Indications After Laparoscopy Introduction: A Single Center Experience, Elia Pulvirenti, Adriana Toro, Michel Gagner, Maurizio Mannino, Isidoro Di Carlo

HWCOM Faculty Publications

Background

During recent years laparoscopic cholecystectomy has dramatically increased, sometimes resulting in overtreatment. Aim of this work was to retrospectively analyze all laparoscopic cholecystectomies performed in a single center in order to find the percentage of patients whose surgical treatment may be explained with this general trend, and to speculate about the possible causes.

Methods

831 patients who underwent a laparoscopic cholecystectomy from 1999 to 2008 were retrospectively analyzed.

Results

At discharge, 43.08% of patients were operated on because of at least one previous episode of biliary colic before the one at admission; 14.08% of patients presented with acute lithiasic …