World Neurosurg
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"Hybrid workshops during COVID-19 pandemic" - Dawn of a new era in neurosurgical learning platforms.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, disruption of surgical hands-on training has hampered the skills acquisition by budding neurosurgeons. Online and virtual classrooms have not been able to substitute the hands-on experience and learning via direct interaction with senior colleagues. To overcome these challenges, we organized a hybrid workshop where simulation-based learning modules, and direct and virtual interaction with surgeons during live surgeries or didactic lectures were utilized to help delegates in understanding the nuances of neurosurgery. ⋯ In this era of the COVID-19 pandemic, "hybrid" microneurosurgery workshops offer unique opportunities to enhance surgical skills acquisition by hands-on simulation-based learning and observing live surgical demonstrations, apart from 2-way interactions with experts under one roof. This may be a stepping stone for what lies ahead in the future of neurosurgical training.
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The silastic tube technique, in which a chest tube is placed into the vertebral body defect and impregnated with polymethyl methacrylate, showed good results in patients with lumbar and thoracic neoplastic diseases. There has been only 1 study about the effectiveness and safety of this technique in patients with cervical metastases. We aimed to report our experience in using this technique to reconstruct the spine after corpectomy for cervical metastasis. ⋯ The silastic tube technique in conjunction with anterior cervical plate stabilization might be safe, effective, and cost-effective for patients with cervical spine metastasis.
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Prone transpsoas lateral lumbar interbody fusion (PTP-LLIF) is a recently introduced modification to standard LLIF. To date, no study has compared the radiographic outcomes of standard LLIF and PTP-LLIF. We performed a radiographic parameter-based propensity score-matched analysis to compare postoperative clinical and radiographic outcomes between PTP-LLIF and standard LLIF for degenerative lumbar spine disease. ⋯ The PTP-LLIF group showed significantly better improvement in lumbar lordosis and short-form 12-item physical score.
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To compare cement distribution and leakage for 2 bone cement-augmented screws with different designs of injection holes in patients and the impact of screw locations and bone mineral density (BMD) on the results. ⋯ Our results showed that screws with injection holes closer to the screw tip had higher incidences of distribution in the anterior half of the body and lower incidences of type B leakage. Patients with lower BMD and T-scores should be closely monitored, and a more centered position is recommended for screw insertion.
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To assess effect of licochalcone A (LicA) on amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide fragment 25-35-induced nerve injury and reveal the potential molecular mechanisms involved. ⋯ LicA protects SH-SY5Y cells against Aβ25-35-induced injury, wherein suppressed autophagy and activated PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway are involved, and mTOR-dependent autophagy at least plays some role.