Recently developed treatments targeting these pathophysiological changes have enabled a reduction in the severity of pain; however, complete resolution remains elusive.

Changes in the peripheral and central nervous systems following amputation should not be viewed as separate pathologies, but rather two interdependent mechanisms that underlie the development of pathological pain. A better understanding of the physiological changes following amputation will allow for improvements in therapeutic treatments to minimize pathological pain caused by amputation.

Changes in the peripheral and central nervous systems following amputation should not be viewed as separate pathologies, but rather two interdependent mechanisms that underlie the development of pathological pain. A better understanding of the physiological changes following amputation will allow for improvements in therapeutic treatments to minimize pathological pain caused by amputation.The choice of prosthetic or autologous reconstruction for proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint arthroplasty in degenerative osteoarthritis represents a challenge for hand surgeons, especially in consideration of complications and patient’s quality of life. We report the case of a 49-year-old woman who developed diffuse arthritis of the finger joints, especially at the PIP joint of the third right finger. Radiographs showed destruction of the PIP joint, large osteophytes, marked narrowing of joint space, severe sclerosis, and deformation of bone contour. Through a volar approach, we removed the osteophytes, reshaped the joint, and performed an arthroplasty with volar plate interposition. The patient had an improved range of motion at 3 months postoperatively. This case study gives a detailed description and discussion, together with literature revision, of volar plate interposition arthroplasty to treat PIP osteoarthritis, as an alternative to other methods.

The dermal panniculus carnosus (PC) muscle is critical for wound contraction in lower mammals and is a useful model of muscle regeneration owing to its high cellular metabolic turnover. During wound healing in mice, skin structures, including PC, are completely regenerated up to embryonic day (E) 13, but PC is only partially regenerated in fetuses or adult animals after E14. Nevertheless, the mechanisms underlying wound repair for complete regeneration in PC have not been fully elucidated. We hypothesized that retinoic acid (RA) signaling, which is involved in muscle differentiation, regulates PC regeneration.

Surgical injury was induced in ICR mice on E13 and E14. RA receptor alpha (RARα) expression in tissue samples from embryos was evaluated using immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. To evaluate the effects of RA on PC regeneration, beads soaked in all-trans RA (ATRA) were implanted in E13 wounds, and tissues were observed. The effects of RA on myoblast migration were evaluated using a cell migration assay.

During wound healing, RARα expression was enhanced at the cut surface in PCs of E13 wounds but was attenuated at the cut edge of E14 PCs. Implantation of ATRA-containing beads inhibited PC regeneration on E13 in a concentration-dependent manner. Treatment of myoblasts with ATRA inhibited cell migration.

ATRA inhibits PC regeneration, and decreased RARα expression in wounds after E14 inhibits myoblast migration. Our findings may contribute to the development of therapies to promote complete wound regeneration, even in the muscle.

ATRA inhibits PC regeneration, and decreased RARα expression in wounds after E14 inhibits myoblast migration. Our findings may contribute to the development of therapies to promote complete wound regeneration, even in the muscle.

The advent of acellular dermal matrix (ADM) has revolutionized prosthesis-based breast reconstruction. However, paucity of human cadaveric tissue has resulted in limitation of supply and increased associated costs, prompting concerted effort to identify xenograft alternatives. Although studies have examined the safety of Artia, a porcine-derived ADM, few have evaluated its clinical efficacy as soft tissue reinforcement. This study uniquely evaluates the clinical efficacy of Artia in implant-based breast reconstruction.

IRB-approved retrospective chart review was conducted to identify 243 consecutive TE-based procedures performed at a tertiary academic medical center between March 2017 and March 2021. Propensity matching was conducted to minimize differences between cohorts. Efficacy metrics, defined as initial tissue expander (TE) fill volume, number of TE fills, and time interval between exchange of TE for final implant, were compared between xenograft (Artia) and allograft (AlloDerm) groups.

Patients who underwent Artia-based breast reconstruction achieved superior initial TE fill volume relative to those who underwent AlloDerm-based breast reconstruction via univariate analysis (317.3 ± 185.8 mL versus 286.1 ± 140.4 mL,

< 0.01) when patient and operative characteristics were well-matched. However, linear regression analysis failed to demonstrate difference in efficacy metrics, such as initial TE fill volume (

= 0.31), ratio between initial TE fill volume and final implant size (

= 0.19), and number of TE fills (

= 0.76). Complication rates were comparable between groups.

This study suggests that Artia can be used as a safe and efficacious alternative to human-derived ADM in immediate TE-based breast reconstruction.

This study suggests that Artia can be used as a safe and efficacious alternative to human-derived ADM in immediate TE-based breast reconstruction.

Patients with atypical facial clefts are rare, and there is a paucity of literature outlining the surgical approach to managing these patients. The anatomical subunit approach to the surgical correction of the cleft lip has revolutionized cleft care. Here, we outline our approach and operative technique to treating Tessier clefts 3 and 4 using a novel technique based on the anatomical subunit approach.

All cases of Tessier facial clefts 3 and 4 between 2019 and 2021 from the senior author’s practice were reviewed retrospectively. Patient demographics, clinical presentation, procedure details, and complications are reported. The senior author’s technique is described in detail.

Five patients underwent treatment by the senior author during the study period. One patient had bilateral Tessier 4 clefts, one patient had bilateral Tessier 3 clefts, two patients had a unilateral Tessier 4 cleft, and one patient had a unilateral Tessier 3 cleft. Two of the patients had their clefts treated as secondary procedures. The surgical complication profile was a lost nasal stent in one patient. Treatment principles of the senior author’s technique are presented.

The anatomical subunit approach to managing atypical facial clefts provides a structured approach to a complex problem for the cleft and craniofacial surgeon. The technique of repair presented here can assist surgeons attempting to treat patients with Tessier 3 and 4 clefts.

The anatomical subunit approach to managing atypical facial clefts provides a structured approach to a complex problem for the cleft and craniofacial surgeon. The technique of repair presented here can assist surgeons attempting to treat patients with Tessier 3 and 4 clefts.The optical properties of blood encode oxygen-dependent information. Noninvasive optical detection of these properties is increasingly desirable to extract biomarkers for tissue health. Recently, visible-light optical coherence tomography (vis-OCT) demonstrated retinal oxygen saturation (sO2) measurements by inversely measuring the oxygen-dependent absorption and scattering coefficients of whole blood. However, vis-OCT may be sensitive to optical scattering properties of whole blood, different from those reported in the literature. Incorrect assumptions of such properties can add additional uncertainties or biases to vis-OCT’s sO2 model. This work investigates whole blood’s scattering coefficient measured by vis-OCT. Using Monte Carlo simulation of a retinal vessel, we determined that vis-OCT almost exclusively detects multiple-scattered photons in whole blood. Meanwhile, photons mostly forward scatter in whole blood within the visible spectral range, allowing photons to maintain ballistic paths and penetrate deeply, leading to a reduction in the measured scattering coefficient. We defined a scattering scaling factor (SSF) to account for such a reduction and found that SSF varied with measurement conditions, such as numerical aperture, depth resolution, and depth selection. We further experimentally validated SSF in ex vivo blood phantoms with pre-set sO2 levels and in the human retina, both of which agreed well with our simulation.Dynamic optical coherence elastography (OCE) tracks mechanical wave propagation in the subsurface region of tissue to image its shear modulus. For bulk shear waves, the lateral resolution of the reconstructed modulus map (i.e., elastographic resolution) can approach that of optical coherence tomography (OCT), typically a few tens of microns. Here we perform comprehensive numerical simulations and acoustic micro-tapping OCE experiments to show that for the typical situation of guided wave propagation in bounded media, such as cornea, the elastographic resolution cannot reach the OCT resolution and is mainly defined by the thickness of the bounded tissue layer. We considered the excitation of both broadband and quasi-harmonic guided waves in a bounded, isotropic medium. Leveraging the properties of broadband pulses, a robust method for modulus reconstruction with minimum artifacts at interfaces is demonstrated. In contrast, tissue bounding creates large instabilities in the phase of harmonic waves, leading to serious artifacts in modulus reconstructions.Light-sheet fluorescent microscopy (LSFM) has, in recent years, allowed for rapid 3D-imaging of cleared biomedical samples at larger and larger scale. KB0742 However, even in cleared samples, multiple light scattering often degrades the imaging contrast and widens the optical sectioning. Accumulation of scattering intensifies these negative effects as light propagates inside the tissue, which accentuates the issues when imaging large samples. With axially swept light-sheet microscopy (ASLM), centimeter-scale samples can be scanned with a uniform micrometric optical sectioning. But to fully utilize these benefits for 3D-imaging in biomedical tissue samples, suppression of scattered light is needed. Here, we address this by merging ASLM with light-sheet based structured illumination into Structured Illumination Light-sheet Microscopy with Axial Sweeping (SILMAS). The SILMAS method thus enables high-contrast imaging, isotropic micrometric resolution and uniform optical sectioning in centimeter-scale scattering samples, creating isotropic 3D-volumes of e.g., whole mouse brains without the need for any computation-heavy post-processing. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in agarose gel phantoms with fluorescent beads, and in an PFF injected alpha-synuclein transgenic mouse model tagged with a green fluorescent protein (SynGFP). SILMAS imaging is compared to standard ASLM imaging on the same samples and using the same optical setup, and is shown to increase contrast by as much as 370% and reduce widening of optical sectioning by 74%. With these results, we show that SILMAS improves upon the performance of current state-of-the-art light-sheet microscopes for large and imperfectly cleared tissue samples and is a valuable addition to the LSFM family.