Acta clinica Croatica
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Acta clinica Croatica · Jun 2020
Autologous Fat Augmentation in the Treatment of Unilateral Vocal Fold Paralysis - A 15-year Experience in a Single Institution.
Autologous fat vocal fold augmentation is a widespread surgical procedure that aims to repair glottal incompetence in patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP). However, there are some concerns in the literature about the long-term results of this technique. At the ENT Department of the Zagreb University Hospital Centre, this technique has been in use for more than 15 years, and a retrospective medical chart review was conducted from June 2005 to November 2019. ⋯ All tested voice outcome parameters (maximum phonation time (MPT), jitter, shimmer, noise-to-harmonic ratio (NHR)) significantly improved after surgery, both early and late postoperatively (p<0.001). The reoperation rate was only 10.3% (8/78), with the majority of patients in our series experiencing long-term benefits from this surgical procedure. According to the results of our study, autologous fat vocal fold augmentation appears to be a highly useful and effective surgical technique with long-lasting results in the majority of patients suffering from UVFP.
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Acta clinica Croatica · Jun 2020
Case ReportsSURGICAL ASPECT OF BLEPHAROSPASM TREATMENT: A CASE REPORT.
Blepharospasm is an idiopathic condition characterized by involuntary eyelid closure mainly caused by bilateral tonic-clonic contractions of the orbicularis oculi muscle. It results in patient inability to open their eyes, thus significantly impairing their ability to perform activities of daily living. ⋯ In this overview, we present a case of a 75-year-old female patient who received surgical treatment as per Anderson's method after being treated with botulinum toxin type A for 3 years. This form of therapy proved to be an extremely successful permanent solution in the treatment of severe cases of refractory blepharospasm, without any long-term complications, especially ectropion and lagophthalmos.
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Acta clinica Croatica · Jun 2020
The effect of smoking on disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis - our experience.
The aim of this study was to investigate the association of smoking with disease activity, seropositivity, age and gender in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. We included 89 rheumatoid arthritis patients. All patients fulfilled the 2010 American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism rheumatoid arthritis classification criteria. ⋯ In this study, we found no association between smoking status and disease activity, seropositivity, age or gender in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Furthermore, disease activity was not related to age, gender or seropositivity. Additional studies on the effects of smoking on rheumatoid arthritis activity are needed.
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Thyroid cancer (TC) is the most common endocrine cancer today. The rising incidence of the differentiated papillary type cannot be entirely explained by early and meticulous diagnosis, since a proportion of large tumors has also been reported. ⋯ There is also a possibility that yet undiscovered carcinogens, especially during intrauterine life or early childhood, might be responsible for increased TC incidence as well as epigenetic changes. Therefore, more studies are necessary in order to further investigate the potential risk factors for TC and their mechanisms of action.
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Acta clinica Croatica · Jun 2020
Thyroglobulin Measurement in Needle Aspiration for Detection of Recurrences and Neck Metastases in Patients with Differentiated Thyroid Carcinoma: Significance of Anti-Tg Antibodies.
The worldwide incidence of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) has increased in recent decades, likely due to frequent use of cervical ultrasonography (US) and US-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNA)., US is performed during follow-up after thyroidectomy, and US-guided FNA with cytology is used if suspicious cervical lymph nodes (LN) or thyroid bed masses are detected. Knowing that serum anti-Tg antibodies (sTgAb) affect the use of serum Tg (sTg) as a tumor marker, the aim of our study was to assess the usefulness of Tg determination in needle aspirates (FNA-Tg) in presence of sTgAb. This retrospective study included 149 patients with DTC and 159 aspirations of suspicious LN and thyroid bed masses. ⋯ Furthermore, we found a positive correlation between sTg and FNA-Tg levels (p<0.05), but not between sTgAb and FNA-TgAb or sTgAb and FNA-Tg. In conclusion, these results show that FNA-Tg values were not affected by sTgAb and that FNA-Tg measurement were highly effective in detecting cervical DTC metastases. However, combined use with cytology is suggested for neck evaluation because cytology could reveal metastases from other tumor sites.