Seminars in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery
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Semin. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. · Jan 2012
Extrapleural catheters: an effective alternative for treating postoperative pain for thoracic surgical patients.
Pain control is an important aspect of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) procedures. Offering an effective and low-risk method of postoperative pain control is thus vital to a patient's recovery. Hotta and colleagues report the results of a clinical study comparing efficacy of epidurals vs extrapleural catheters in VATS procedures. They found that extrapleural catheters provided equivalent postoperative pain relief when compared to thoracic epidural catheters.
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Semin. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. · Jan 2012
The future of tissue-engineered organs for transplant? It's here!
The first-in-man bioengineered artificial tracheobronchial transplant consisting of a synthetic scaffold and autologous bone marrow-derived mesenchymal cells was recently reported. Extensive evaluation of the patient before and after transplant provides some insight into the potential mechanisms of stem cell mobilization and tracheal tissue regeneration.