With Barbara Walters' announcement that she is scheduled to undergo surgery to replace a faulty aortic valve (most likely caused by stenosis of the aortic valve, according to Sara Sirna, MD, of the Temple Heart Center), your patients may be asking you questions about stenosis, aortic valve replacement surgery, mitral valve regurgitation, and a other related topics.
Unless you've yet to come out of your winter hibernation, you've likely heard about the subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) suffered-just days after an emergency appendectomy-by Poison front man and "The Celebrity Apprentice" contestant Bret Michaels. But few media sources have gone past reporting the incident to explain how it could affect Michaels long-term (should he survive) and how it might have been prevented; Matt Mealiffe, MD, over at DNA and You, is an exception.
In a preliminary study, Attiva, increased the post-meal feeling of satiety and reduced hunger between meals.
I thought I lost a patient a few weeks ago. No, he didn't die, but after his office visit, I had the distinct impression that he might not come back. My job is to take care of my patients' health. But sometimes I'm just the messenger.
People with diabetes who undergo cancer surgery are more likely to die in the month following their operations than those without diabetes, but researchers don't know why.
Splenic artery aneurysm is the most common form of visceral artery aneurysm. Most present asymptomatically with incidental findings on CT or ultrasound which are diagnostic, although about 20% present with vague left upper quadrant abdominal pain. Treatment should be aimed at preserving splenic function whenever possible and endovascular treatments offer a less invasive option to patients than open surgical ligation or resection.
In women who would normally undergo mastectomy for a large breast tumor, breast conservation via lumpectomy can be a reality.
Thanks to a new method for measuring brain function, your patients with brain tumors could soon experience better surgical results.
For a patient diagnosed with several kinds of brain tumors, going "under the knife" has come to mean a completely different type of procedure than previously thought.
We assessed preoperative cardiac physiology using echocardiography in patients undergoing cardiac surgery to identify predictors of postoperative atrial fibrillation. Subjects with enlarged left atrial volume had a 5-fold greater risk of postoperative atrial fibrillation, independent of age and other risk factors, than those without enlarged left atrial volume. Left atrial volume appears to be a powerful tool to stratify patients according to risk before surgery and to effectively target preventive therapy.
Depression is a well-documented adverse effect of many surgical procedures, yet many surgeons fail to warn patients about their risks. What should surgeons do to monitor patients for depression after surgery?
