Doctors Restore Individual Finger Function For Amputee

Two hand surgeons from OrthoCarolina in North Carolina say they completed the first surgery that allows an amputee patient to have individual digital control in a functioning myoelectric prosthesis.

[From article]
An amputee has reportedly become the first in the world to gain individual finger control in his prosthetic hand thanks to a ground-breaking operation.
Two hand surgeons from OrthoCarolina in North Carolina say they completed the first surgery that allows an amputee patient to have individual digital control in a functioning myoelectric prosthesis.
The operation involved transferring existing muscle from the fingers to the back of the hand and wrist without causing damage to the nerves and blood vessels to the muscles.[. . .]
OrthoCarolina Research Institute said the pilot case is an example of 'life-changing impact' orthopedic research plays in advancing patient outcomes and that it will continue supporting the research and the manufacturing of the prosthesis.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3621109/Amputee-moves-fingers-individually-thanks-ground-breaking-prosthesis.html

Amputee becomes first ever to move his 'fingers' individually thanks to ground-breaking prosthesis
Dr Glenn Gaston and Dr Bryan Loeffler completed surgery to allow an amputee with a prosthetic hand to have individual finger control
Operation involved transferring existing muscle from fingers to back of the hand and wrist without damaging nerves and blood vessels
Dr Loeffler said the muscle transfer is a breakthrough that could impact how specific amputations are done in the future
By DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 22:23 EST, 1 June 2016 | UPDATED: 23:17 EST, 1 June 2016

Conjoined Twins Successfully Separated in Texas Hospital

This Feb. 10, 2016 photo provided by Driscoll Children's Hospital shows conjoined twin sisters Scarlett, left, and Ximena Hernandez-Torres at Dirscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas. Doctors in Texas will attempt to separate the two 10-month-old sisters born conjoined below the waist. The girls share a colon and bladders that will be reconstructed. Their identical triplet sister, Catalina, was born without serious health issues. 

(Joshua Thelin/Driscoll Children's Hospital via AP) 

(Driscoll Children's Hospital)
[From article]
Twin girls who were formerly conjoined below the waist have been released from a South Texas hospital.
A spokesman for Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi confirmed that Ximena (huh-MEE'-nuh) and Scarlett Hernandez-Torres were discharged Wednesday.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports the twins moved to a Ronald McDonald House to continue their recovery with their mother and their triplet sister.
The twins are about 1 year old. They underwent an hourslong surgery last month to separate them. They had been joined at the pelvis and shared a bladder and other organs.
Doctors have a positive outlook for the children's recovery and say the girls will require additional surgeries as they grow.
Their triplet sister, Catalina, was born without serious health issues.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/05/18/formerly-conjoined-twins-released-from-texas-hospital.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29


Formerly conjoined twins released from Texas hospital
Published May 18, 2016

Associated Press

Fox News

Conjoined Twins 3-months-old, Successfully Separated

Doctors successfully separated the sisters, who shared a liver, during an operation in India last week.

[From article]
Three-month-old conjoined twins who shared a liver have been successfully separated by doctors in India.
Sisters Jannat and Mannat were born joined at their abdomen and lower chest - a condition known medically as omphalopagus - and had a combined weight of just 6.6 lbs.
They were delivered at a private hospital in Barara, a town in Ambala district, near Chandigarh, on August 27.
[. . .]
It is the first time such a surgery has been successfully carried out at the PGIMER, the doctor said.
Doctors carried out a series of tests including CT and MRI scans to find out which organs the sisters shared.
They found that the twins had a conjoined liver but thankfully, the rest of their organs were separate.
Dr Kanojia said that such separation surgeries on conjoined twins are generally performed when the children are over a year old.

[. . .]


It was the first time the surgical team at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in India had performed an operation to separate conjoined twins. The girls have been recovering in hospital.

However, it was decided that despite the twins only jointly weighing 9.2lbs at the time of surgery, any delay could hinder their growth.
A 30-member team worked for eight hours to separate the twins, ensuring each baby had enought of the vital organ to live a normal life, on November 23.
It was led by Dr Ravi Kanojia, assisted by paediatrics surgeon Dr Jai Kumar Mahajan.
[. . .]
The twins were expected to be discharged from hospital today.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3341027/Conjoined-twin-sisters-attached-chest-successfully-separated-expected-make-recovery.html

Conjoined twin sisters attached at the chest are successfully separated - and expected to make a full recovery
Sisters Jannat and Mannat were born in August joined at the abdomen
Diagnosed with omphalopagus where the abdomen and chest are joined
They had a combined weight of 9.2lbs when the operation was carried out
The pair are expected to make a full recovery and be discharged today
By KATE PICKLES FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:11 EST, 1 December 2015 | UPDATED: 19:08 EST, 1 December 2015

Teen Girl Recipient Of Life Saving Surgery Meets Doctor Who Performed It

This is the heartwarming moment Ashli Taylor, who received a life-saving liver transplant as a baby, got a surprise visit from her surgeon 15 years later.

[From article]

This is the heartwarming moment a high school student who received a life-saving liver transplant as a baby got a surprise visit from her surgeon 15 years later.
Ashli Taylor, of Temple, Texas, was not even a year old when she was forced to go in for surgery due to a rare congenital condition. 

The teen was overcome with emotion as she met the man who was the reason she was alive today.

Thanks to the skills of her talented surgeon Dr. Robert Goldstein, and her mother's incredible decision to donate part of her own liver to her daughter, Ashli went onto make a miraculous recovery.
The 15-year-old was too young to remember the man who helped saved her life so when her teacher Brad Billeaudeaux set the class a creative writing assignment, she decided to send a letter to Dr. Goldstein in September to say thank you.
Having mailed the letter, she thought no more about it - until the doctor strolled into her theater arts class at Temple High School yesterday afternoon.
'Guess who?' said Dr. Robert Goldstein, a transplant specialist from Baylor Scott & White Dallas, who told The Tennessean he was so touched by the gesture he had wanted to surprise her.
[. . .]
'Kids that go through the same thing... they don't always make it,' Taylor said. 'And me being able to make it, I'm just really grateful for those who helped.
'[Doctors] don't get a lot of 'thank-yous,' Taylor said. 'They need to know people appreciate their work.
The experience was just as emotional for Dr. Goldstein who admitted that the moment had nearly had him in tears alongside Ashli.
He said he had performed hundreds of surgeries over the years, but her letter out the blue had moved him and 'everybody in the office.'
'I can't tell you what this means,' he said.
'We made an impact on her, but Ashli made more of an impact on us. This is why we spend the hours doing what we do, because when you see something like this, it's incredible.'
'She moved me to the point where I wanted to give back,' Goldstein added. 'I wanted her to realize her words had a real lasting impression.'
In her moving letter, seen by the Temple Daily Telegram, Taylor wrote: 'You probably have no idea who I am, but you had a great impact in my life.'
'I know you've had a lot of patients over the years and they appreciate your work. But my parents' lives would be totally different if it weren't for you, especially my mom.'
Ashli was born with rare congenital cirrhosis of the liver.

[. . .]

The teen has gone onto to surpass all expectations and is in Advanced Placement classes at school and is a member of the band, choir and theater arts - despite fears her illness might cause her to fall behind academically.
She went onto to make a full recovery and has not shown any signs of organ rejection.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3341729/Moment-surgeon-performed-life-saving-liver-transplant-operation-surprises-teenage-recipient-15-years-later-heartfelt-thank-letter.html

Reunited: Surgeon who performed life-saving liver transplant surprises teenage recipient 15 years later after her heartfelt thank you letter
Ashli Taylor needed a liver transplant before she was a year old due to rare congenital condition
Her mother donated part of her liver and the life-saving operation was performed by Dr. Robert Goldstein
The 15-year-old wrote to the surgeon to thank him as part of a school creative writing project
He was so moved by the letter he decided to surprise the teen at class
By HANNAH PARRY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 16:58 EST, 1 December 2015 | UPDATED: 00:40 EST, 2 December 2015

Conjoined Brazilian Twin Girls Separated Successfully

Look at us now! The twins sit on the knees of their young parents, from left, Caique Santana and Denise Borges.

[From article]
The twin baby girls, Maria Clara and Maria Eduarda Santana, from Salvador, were born in May this year sharing an abdomen and liver
[. . .]
Now, such is the success of their life-transforming operation, which was led by pediatric surgeon Zacharias Calil, it's hard to differentiate them from any other doting young family with twins.
[. . .]
The latest photographs, taken on the 23rd September, show the chubby-cheeked twins, now five months old, dressed in pretty outfits with clips in their hair. In one shot, baby Maria Clara, who is still receiving medical care in hospital, is gently fed a bottle of milk by her mother. Another pose shows the doctors and nurses who are caring for the twins and includes one of Maria Clara preparing for an x-ray to check on her recovery.
[. . .]
Conjoined twins occur about once in every 200,000 live births and their survival is 'anything but assured' according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.
It claims 40 to 60 per cent of conjoined twins arrive stillborn and tragically, about 35 per cent only survive for a single day.
The are genetically rare and always the same sex because they develop from the same fertilised egg and share the same placenta.
'Twinning' occurs either when a woman releases two eggs instead of one or she produces an egg that divides after it has been fertilised.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3253209/Incredible-photos-conjoined-Brazilian-baby-twins-just-days-successful-six-hour-operation-separate-them.html

Incredible photos show conjoined Brazilian baby twins just days after successful six-hour operation to separate them
Twins Maria Clara and Maria Eduarda Santana were born sharing a liver and an abdomen earlier this year
The baby girls, now five months old, were born to a poor family from Salvador and were separated on September 9th
The operation to part them took six hours and involved 15 medical professionals
Photographer Mateus André travelled 260km by public transport to make sure he could snap them again
Conjoined twins occur about once in every 200,000 live births
By JO TWEEDY FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:31 EST, 29 September 2015 | UPDATED: 09:45 EST, 29 September 2015

Toddler, 18 months, Survives After Car Crash Decapitation, Spine Repaired

Support: Jaxon is wearing a 'halo' to keep his body stable
[From article]
This child has made a miracle recovery after his HEAD was internally decapitated in a car crash .
Young Jaxon Taylor, aged one, could have died after the smash.
The 16-month-old toddler was with his mum and nine-year-old sister Shayne when they collided head on with another vehicle at 70mph on September 15.
[. . .]
In a six-hour surgery Dr Askin and his team attached a halo device to Jackson’s skull, holding him completely still while reattaching his vertebrae using a tiny piece of wire.
Then medical staff took a piece of Jaxon’s rib to graft the two vertebrae together.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/medical-miracle-doctors-reattach-toddlers-6568883

Medical miracle as doctors reattach toddler's decapitated HEAD after horrific car crash
23:09, 3 OCT 2015
UPDATED 19:43, 4 OCT 2015
BY PAUL HARPER
Hero doctors reattached the boy's vertebrae using wire and a piece of his rib

CBS News Study of Taxpayer Funded Back Surgeries

Uncounted are procedures by private insurers, and uninsured surgeries. Any idea how to estimate those figures? Noted is the potential for confusion, errors and miscellaneous errors in billing. Information is included of the benefits experienced by three patients. Four doctors are scrutinized. Of the 480,000 spinal fusions performed annually, it would be helpful for more extensive follow-up on a larger sample of patients. Are some lives better, some worse and some unchanged? On April 6, 2015 a number of news stories appeared about the Journal of the American Medical Association study about an increase in back surgeries.

[From article]
The attorney also objected to the use of billing codes to count spinal fusions for "degenerative" conditions that cause lower back pain. "It is simply not possible to discern the diagnosis(es) from the CPT code alone," she wrote.
It is true that the billing codes describe a technique - not a diagnosis. Some widely accepted fusions are billed for using these same codes. But while the data does not reveal whether any of the fusions that a doctor performed were inappropriate, experts say high numbers raise questions and serve as starting points for further investigation.
[. . .]
When we looked into Dr. Jimenez, we found that in 2006 he was suspended indefinitely by a network of five hospitals in Georgia. According to a confidential report obtained by CBS News, it concluded that he "pose[d] a threat to the life, health and safety of patients." There were concerns about, among other things, his "surgical competency and selection of procedures." Dr. Jimenez eventually left the hospital system and sued it for racial discrimination. He claimed the review committee made up lies to oust him and did not give him a hearing. The case was eventually dismissed.
[. . .]
Keith is now suing Dr. Alexander for allegedly aligning her neck crookedly and performing a more aggressive surgery than necessary. She has virtually no movement of her head, and it is stuck in a tilted position looking down and off to the right. Multiple doctors have said a corrective surgery would involve removing rods and screws that Dr. Alexander put in and entail significant risk. The case is ongoing.


Kimberly Keith's x-ray after surgery
Hilliard Munoz Gonzales LLP
[. . .]
Dr. Resnick added that Medicare, medical societies, and credentialing bodies (including state medical boards and the American Board of Medical Specialties) should use databases like the one in this story to follow practice patterns and patient outcomes. He said surgeons with the highest numbers should be closely looked at and asked to explain themselves. But he said that won't happen without a source of funding, as the work is time consuming and entails legal risk.
[. . .]
More than 480,000 spinal fusions are performed in U.S hospitals each year, making them more common than even hip replacements. The annual cost of these surgeries is more than $12 billion, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Experts disagree about how many may be unnecessary, but Dr. Richard Deyo, a critic of the procedure and professor at Oregon Health and Science University believes it could be as much as half. For Medicare and Medicaid patients, taxpayers foot the bill.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/tapping-into-controversial-back-surgeries/

By Ben Eisler
CBS News
April 24, 2014, 6:30 AM
Tapping into controversial back surgeries

Get Ready For Full Body Transplants

Doctor plans to attach a living person’s head to a donor body in operation he says is not far off. Photograph: Alamy
Much too difficult. It is much easier and less time consuming to just do mind transplants. If Obama, Biden, Holder, the Clintons and Jonathan Gruber can do it, anyone can.

[From article]
Sergio Canavero, a doctor in Turin, Italy, has drawn up plans to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body and claims the procedures needed to carry out the operation are not far off.
[. . .]
He has claimed for years that medical science has advanced to the point that a full body transplant is plausible, but the proposal has caused raised eyebrows, horror and profound disbelief in other surgeons.
[. . .]
According to the procedure Canavero outlined this month, doctors would first cool the patient’s head and the donor’s body so their cells do not die during the operation. The neck is then cut through, the blood vessels linked up with thin tubes, and the spinal cord cut with an exceptionally sharp knife to minimise nerve damage. The recipient’s head is then moved on to the donor’s body.
The next stage is trickier. Canavero believes that the spinal cord nerves that would allow the recipient’s brain to talk to the donor’s body can be fused together using a substance called polyethylene glycol. To stop the patient moving, they must be kept in a coma for weeks. When they come round, Canavero believes they would be able to speak and feel their face, though he predicts they would need a year of physiotherapy before they could move the body.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/25/first-full-body-transplant-two-years-away-surgeon-claim

First full body transplant is two years away, surgeon claims
Doctor plans to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body using procedures he believes will soon be ready
Ian Sample, science editor
@iansample
Wednesday 25 February 2015 13.50 EST

Ten Month Old Conjoined Twins Successfully Separated At Texas Hospital

Conjoined twins Knatalye Hope and Adeline Faith were successfully separated during surgery Feb. 17 at Texas children's Hospital.

(Photo: Allen S.Kramer / Texas Children's Hospital)

[From article]

Doctors shared more good news Tuesday about the separation of conjoined twin girls at Texas Children's Hospital.
After only 10 months of living conjoined, a team of doctors at Texas Children's Hospital successfully separated Knatalye and Adeline Mata during a 26-hour surgery on Feb. 17.
Doctors shared more good news Tuesday about the separation of conjoined twin girls at Texas Children's Hospital.
After only 10 months of living conjoined, a team of doctors at Texas Children's Hospital successfully separated Knatalye and Adeline Mata during a 26-hour surgery on Feb. 17.

http://www.khou.com/story/news/local/2015/02/24/doctors-share-more-good-news-on-separation-of-conjoined-twins/23962813/

Doctors share more good news on separation of conjoined twins
KHOU.com

Staff

5:27 p.m. CST February 24, 2015

Polish Surgeons Restore Ability Of Paralyzed Man To Stand, Walk

[From article]

A man who was completely paralysed from the waist down can walk again after a British-funded surgical breakthrough which offers hope to millions of people who are disabled by spinal cord injuries.
Polish surgeons used nerve-supporting cells from the nose of Darek Fidyka, a Bulgarian man who was injured four years ago, to provide pathways along which the broken tissue was able to grow.
The 38-year-old, who is believed to be the first person in the world to recover from complete severing of the spinal nerves, can now walk with a frame and has been able to resume an independent life, even to the extent of driving a car, while sensation has returned to his lower limbs.
[. . .]

“He can get around with a walker and he’s been able to resume much of his original life, including driving a car. He’s not dancing, but he’s absolutely delighted,” said Raisman.
The NSIF’s founder, David Nicholls, whose son Daniel was paralysed in 2003, said information relating to the breakthrough will be made available to other researchers around the world to help cure paralysis.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/21/paralysed-darek-fidyka-pioneering-surgery

Paralysed man Darek Fidyka walks again after pioneering surgery
Medical team regrow cells of patient’s severed spine in breakthrough that offers hope to millions with disability
Ben Quinn and agencies
The Guardian, Monday 20 October 2014

Alabama Surgeon Walks Several Miles in Snowstorm to Save Emergency Patient

[From article]
This just speaks volumes to the dedication of the man,' Davis said. 'When I saw him, all I could say was "You are a good man."'
Davis said Hrynkiw takes good care of himself and frequently walks for exercise.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2548815/Brain-surgeon-walks-six-miles-snow-storm-perform-life-saving-brain-surgery.html

Brain surgeon walks six miles in Alabama snow storm to perform life-saving surgery
Dr Zenko Hrynkiw was called to perform emergency brain surgery Tuesday but a snowstorm had traffic backed up for miles
The dedicated surgeon walked the six miles to Trinity hospital through the storm to perform the surgery
If Dr Hrynkiw, the only brain surgeon in the area, had not walked, the patient likely would have died
Dr Hrynkiw arrived at the hospital and immediately went into surgery
The patient is doing well
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 11:05 EST, 30 January 2014 | UPDATED: 11:07 EST, 30 January 2014

UK Health System Rations Surgeries

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/cataracts-hips-knees-and-tonsils-nhs-begins-rationing-operations-2327268.html

Cataracts, hips, knees and tonsils: NHS begins rationing operations
Almost two-thirds of trusts affected as cuts bite
By Oliver Wright, Whitehall Editor
Thursday, 28 July 2011