Mechanical ventilation is a life-support system used on patients suffering from respiratory failure. It is typically administered to patients on a short-term basis in monitored settings such as ICUs, operating rooms, emergency departments, and in anesthesia and postanesthesia settings.
Needle electromyography, or needle EMG, is a type of electrodiagnostic test used to determine whether a patient’s muscles and nerves are working properly. Physicians order the test when a patient is experiencing numbness, tingling, pain, weakness, or muscle cramping. Typically, neurologists,...
Intradiscal electrothermal therapy (IDET™) is a minimally invasive surgical procedure for treating patients with chronic lower back pain caused by tears and small herniations of the lumbar discs. With IDET, physicians deliver heat directly within the symptomatic discs to alleviate the pain.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently gave clearance to Intuitive Surgical, Inc., a Mountain View, CA–based company to begin selling its da Vinci™ Surgical System in the United States. The clearance allows the System to be used for such laparoscopic abdominal surgical procedures...
Percutaneous lumbar discectomy (PLD) is a minimally invasive procedure for treating patients who suffer from low back and leg pain due to a herniated vertebral disc. Vertebral discs are the cushioning and connecting materials that lie between the vertebrae of the spine. They protect the...
Cardiac scoring is a screening method used to detect calcium build-up in the coronary arteries. As a diagnostic tool, the examination can give physicians information that allows assessment of coronary artery disease (arteriosclerosis), which is the narrowing of the arteries that is usually...
Discography is an invasive radiographic technique that uses the injection of contrast media to visualize intervertebral disk space. Developed in Sweden in 1948, it soon became widely used to diagnose such diseases or conditions as lumbar degenerative disease, disc herniation, disc protrusion,...
Medical science has developed many procedures to stabilize the spinal column in the lower back and fuse vertebrae. These techniques range from the simplest, lumbar fusion, to the more complex, the use of instrumentation in pedicle screw fixation and Harrington rod placement. Currently, there is...
Implanting radioactive seeds (brachytherapy) into the prostate is considered as effective as surgery for men with early stage prostate cancer. Five years after treatment, men who received brachytherapy were as likely to be as disease-free as similar patients who have undergone a radical...
