Interest in curves: when the radius of curvature matters in femur fractures. A CT based morphometric study

PURPOSE

In today's era, fractures of the femur are primarily managed with intramedullary devices. Keeping in mind the anatomical sagittal bow of the femur, intramedullary devices have been devised with an anterior bow, but this varies amongst various manufacturers - leading to complications such as anterior cortex impingement beyond the isthmus and posterior cortical opening at the fracture site. We intend to find the average radius of curvature (ROC) of the anatomical bow of the femur and the variation of the same.

METHODS

Radiographic data of 150 normal femur scans done in 81 patients were loaded in the Mimics 21.0 software (Materialise, Leuven, Belgium). A centerline (of the medullary cavity) was created using the software. A best-fit circle was created in the sagittal plane involving a major part of the centerline, and ROC was calculated.

RESULTS

We found the average ROC of our data was 1027.2, with a standard deviation of 241.55. ROC and length of the femur (an indirect measure of height) had a slight positive correlation (r = 0.36; p < 0.05); and a highly positive correlation in the ROC of the left and right femurs of the same individuals (r = 0.605; p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The usual ROC of intramedullary nails is commonly > 1300 mm, much higher than the average ROC we identified in our population. Thus, we conclude that implants with smaller ROC in the range of 1100 mm are needed, leading to better implant placement in the canal and avoiding complications of anterior cortex impingement and preventing fracture gap widening in our setting.

Histopathological, Ultrastructural, and Immunohistochemical Findings in Radial Longitudinal Deficiency: A Prospective, Observational Study

PURPOSE

To report the histopathological, electron microscopic, and immunohistochemical findings of tissue samples obtained from patients with radial longitudinal deficiency (RLD) and investigate the contribution of abnormality in soft tissues as a secondary driver of deformity in RLD.

METHODS

Specimens from radial-sided muscles and tendons were obtained at the time of surgery (either radialization or centralization) from 14 patients with 16 limbs affected with Bayne type 3 and type 4 RLD. The specimens were evaluated using light microscopy, electron microscopy, and immunohistochemical examination.

RESULTS

Among the 16 frozen muscle specimens, 6 (37%) showed normal muscle, while 10 (63%) showed the presence of atrophic fibers. The 6 cases with normal muscle showed no abnormality in fiber type distribution. Six patients showed predominance of type 1 muscle fibers. None of the specimens had myofibroblasts; 4 of 16 specimens had mast cells, and 9 of 16 specimens showed the presence of platelet derived growth factor-positive cells. Features of myofibroblasts (the presence of basal lamina, intercellular junctions, or pinocytic vesicles) were not identified in any specimen on electron microscopy.

CONCLUSIONS

The histopathological, electron microscopic, and immunohistochemical findings, in particular the absence of myofibroblasts, in tissue samples obtained from patients with RLD, do not support the assumption of abnormality in soft tissues as a secondary driver of deformity in RLD.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

This study provides a preliminary insight into a possible role of soft tissues in the development of the deformity in RLD.

Femoral Shaft Fracture in Post-polio Syndrome Patients: Case Series from a Level-I Trauma Center and Review of Literature

BACKGROUND

Femoral shaft fracture in patients of post-polio syndrome (PPS) represents an uncommon yet complex injury pattern. Poorly developed soft-tissue envelope, decreased muscle bulk, reduced vascularity, regional osteopenia, joint contractures, and altered bony anatomy impose significant surgical challenges. Thorough pre-operative planning is imperative as each case requires individualized approach and method of fixation. The aim of the study was to analyze the clinical outcomes in such patients following fracture fixation and to assess the surgical challenges encountered and provide solutions.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A retrospective case series of 33 patients with femoral shaft fracture in PPS limbs was undertaken. Mode of injury, method of fixation, surgical time, intra-operative blood loss, union time, and complications were recorded.

RESULTS

Low-energy fall was the most common mechanism of injury (73%). Thirty-three patients underwent fixation with intramedullary nailing being the most common mode (79%). Femoral canal diameter, femoral bow, fracture location and morphology and clinical deformities of the patients are key governing factors that determine the choice of implant. Locking plates, pre-contoured anatomical plates, and titanium elastic nailing system offer an alternative in patients unsuitable for nailing. With no difference between various implants, average time for bone healing was 13.8 ± 4.4 weeks. All patients resumed full weight-bearing mobilization and returned to pre-injury activity status at the end of 6 months post-surgery.

CONCLUSION

With detailed pre-operative work-up, contemplating intra-operative difficulties, individualized surgical plan, careful handling of soft tissues, and availability of back-up implants, good clinical outcomes can be achieved in femur fractures in PPS patients.

'Extended tibia osteotomy': a technical tip for removal of incarcerated reamer with broken guide wire bead during tibia nailing and literature review

Intramedullary nailing has become a standard of care for tibia fractures. Reaming is an essential part of this technique due to its multiple advantages like a better fit and earlier union. In young bone, with a narrow cortical canal, incarceration and breakage of reamer is a possibility. This can be removed with a ball-tip guidewire. In our case, the broken incarcerated reamer was complicated by a broken ball-tip of the guidewire, leading us to invent a novel medial tibial osteotomy window for the reamer removal. This can be a handy tool for a stuck surgeon intraoperatively.

Amid COVID-19 pandemic-an innovative use of local resources to substitute the need for specialized operation theatre tables for orthopaedic and trauma surgery

Pelvic-acetabulum and spine surgery are two important constituents of complex trauma surgery and require a gamut of resources for fracture management. In the pandemic crisis of COVID-19 where existing health care resources are scarce and a major section of health care infrastructure has been assigned to fight against it, the compromised and less equipped health care facility is left to tackle the ongoing presentation of complex trauma surgery. One major challenge faced to manage these complex procedures is the availability of specialized radiolucent operation tables as even the apex level health care setups generally have one or two such kinds of table. Therefore, in this state of pandemic crisis, innovations utilizing the available local resources need to be developed to avoid deferring these complex operations.

Development and validation of a predictive score, for identifying poor eastern cooperative oncology group performance status (performance status 3-4) advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer patients who are likely to benefit from tyrosine kinase inhibitors

BACKGROUND

One of the ten advanced lung cancer patients presents with poor eastern cooperative oncology group performance status (ECOG PS). There are no clear guidelines about management of these patients. The benefit of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) in this patient population remains questionable. Hence, in this study, we attempted to develop and validate a predictive score which would predict benefit from oral TKI.

METHODS

This was a prospective observational study done at Tata Memorial Hospital, India. Patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer with ECOG PS 3-4 were included in this study. All these patients had received oral TKI on compassionate grounds and were followed up till death. The overall survival (OS) was calculated from date of start of TKI to date of death. R software was used for development and validation of the predictive model.

RESULTS

The median survival duration of the discovery cohort and validation cohort were 170.5 and 115 days, respectively. The model predicted OS accurately, within ±2 months in 72.1% and within ±3 months in 81.7% of patients.

CONCLUSION

The current model can predict OS in poor PS patients treated with TKI within a satisfactory clinical range and can be used for decision-making of these patients.

Drug-sensitive FGFR3 mutations in lung adenocarcinoma

BACKGROUND

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths across the world. In this study, we present therapeutically relevant genetic alterations in lung adenocarcinoma of Indian origin.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Forty-five primary lung adenocarcinoma tumors were sequenced for 676 amplicons using RainDance cancer panel at an average coverage of 1500 × (reads per million mapped reads). To validate the findings, 49 mutations across 23 genes were genotyped in an additional set of 363 primary lung adenocarcinoma tumors using mass spectrometry. NIH/3T3 cells over expressing mutant and wild-type FGFR3 constructs were characterized for anchorage independent growth, constitutive activation, tumor formation and sensitivity to FGFR inhibitors using in vitro and xenograft mouse models.

RESULTS

We present the first spectrum of actionable alterations in lung adenocarcinoma tumors of Indian origin, and shows that mutations of FGFR3 are present in 20 of 363 (5.5%) patients. These FGFR3 mutations are constitutively active and oncogenic when ectopically expressed in NIH/3T3 cells and using a xenograft model in NOD/SCID mice. Inhibition of FGFR3 kinase activity inhibits transformation of NIH/3T3 overexpressing FGFR3 constructs and growth of tumors driven by FGFR3 in the xenograft models. The reduction in tumor size in the mouse is paralleled by a reduction in the amounts of phospho-ERK, validating the in vitro findings. Interestingly, the FGFR3 mutations are significantly higher in a proportion of younger patients and show a trend toward better overall survival, compared with patients lacking actionable alterations or those harboring KRAS mutations.

CONCLUSION

We present the first actionable mutation spectrum in Indian lung cancer genome. These findings implicate FGFR3 as a novel therapeutic in lung adenocarcinoma.

Endogenous endophthalmitis due to Roseomonas mucosa presenting as a subretinal abscess

Background

Endogenous bacterial endophthalmitis is an infrequently reported entity. Although Roseomonas mucosa has been reported to cause systemic infections in immunosuppressed individuals, ocular infection due to Roseomonas has been rarely reported in literature previously.

Findings

A 74-year-old diabetic was diagnosed to have Klebsiella urinary tract infection and septicemia following which he developed ocular pain and redness. Further investigation revealed endophthalmitis with subretinal abscess and retinal detachment. The patient underwent pars plana vitrectomy with drainage of the abscess and silicone oil tamponade. The subretinal aspirate was found to contain R. mucosa confirmed on culture and PCR.

Conclusion

Microbiological evaluation of the subretinal purulent material revealed pink-colored colonies. Nested PCR was positive for detection of the eubacterial genome as well as for detection of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome (Ref)-targeting MPB64 gene. PCR examination of the subretinal pus sample ruled out M. tuberculosis and confirmed R. mucosa. The occurrence of Roseomonas endogenous endophthalmitis presenting as a subretinal abscess has not yet been reported in English literature so far to the best of our knowledge.

Inner retinal layer change in glaucoma patients receiving anti-VEGF for neovascular age related macular degeneration

PURPOSE

The purpose was to evaluate the effects of long-term anti-VEGF treatment on the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and retinal ganglion cell layer (RGCL) thickness for patients with neovascular AMD and glaucoma.

METHODS

Medical records of respective patients who had received more than 15 anti-VEGF injections were reviewed. Initial and latest SD-OCT macular scans were segmented and changes of the RNFL and RGCL thickness at the four outer ETDRS quadrants were evaluated. Secondary outcome measures included changes of visual field parameters seen in automated perimetry.

RESULTS

Sixteen patients were included (mean age 78 ± 6 years). The mean total number of anti-VEGF injections was 39 ± 16. The mean treatment duration was 6.1 ± 2.1 years. The mean IOP decreased from 18 ± 5 mmHg at baseline to 15 ± 5 mmHg at the last visit (p = 0.026). The mean RNFL thickness volume of the outer ETDRS quadrants (0.98 ± 0.18 mm³ to 0.97 ± 0.18 mm³ p = 0.61) and its average thickness (37.9 ± 7.3 μm to 37.2 ± 7.4 μm, p = 0.6) did not significantly change. However, the average RGCL thickness decreased significantly from 0.86 ± 0.12 mm³ to 0.79 ± 0.11 mm³ (p = 0.01), and from 27.7 ± 4.2 to 25.9 ± 3.7 μm (p = 0.01). Number of injections correlated with the RGCL change (r2 = 0.36, p = 0.01). The mean sensitivity, mean defect and absolute scotomata did not significantly change with p-values of 0.28, 0.21 and 0.07, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Patients under long term treatment with anti-VEGF and concurrent glaucoma show significant decrease in macular RGLC volume. However, this decrease is comparable to reported RGCL decrease in patients under anti-VEGF treatment without underlying glaucoma and suggests that glaucoma patients may not be at a higher risk for losing macular RNFL and RGCL, at least if adequate control of intraocular pressure is maintained.

Frequency of bacterial isolates and pattern of antimicrobial resistance in patients with hematological malignancies: A snapshot from tertiary cancer center

BACKGROUND

Infections are the most important cause of mortality in patients with high-risk febrile neutropenia. Emergence of multi-drug resistant organisms (MDROs) has become a major challenge for hemato-oncologists. Knowledge of the prevalent organisms and their antimicrobial sensitivity can help deciding the empirical therapy at individual centers and allows timely measures to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance.

AIMS

To evaluate the frequency of bacterial isolates from all the samples and the pattern of bacterial bloodstream infections and incidence of MDROs.

SETTINGS AND DESIGN

This is a retrospective analysis from a tertiary care cancer center.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

From January to June 2014 information on all the samples received in Department of Microbiology was collected retrospectively. The data from samples collected from patients with hematological cancers were analyzed for types of bacterial isolates and antimicrobial sensitivity.

RESULTS

A total of 739 isolates were identified with 67.9% of isolates being Gram-negative. The predominant Gram-negative organisms were Escherichia coli, Psuedomonas spp. and Klebsiella spp. Among the bacterial bloodstream infections, 66% were Gram-negative isolates. MDROs constituted 22% of all isolates in blood cultures. Incidence of resistant Gram-positive organisms was low in the present dataset (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococci-1.3%).

CONCLUSIONS

The analysis reconfirms the Gram-negative organisms as the predominant pathogens in bacteremia seen in patients with hematological cancers. The high frequency of multi-drug resistance in the dataset calls for the need of emergency measures to curtail further development and propagation of resistant organisms.

Weekly cisplatin (30-40 mg/m2) as radiosensitizer: Is it high or moderate emetic agent?

PURPOSE

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) guideline recommends a high antiemetic prophylaxis for any dose of cisplatin. This hypothesis was tested by us in this analysis of solid tumor patients who received weekly cisplatin as a radiosensitizer in a dose range of 30-40 mg/m2.

METHODS

This was a retrospective analysis of 181 solid tumor patients who received weekly cisplatin (in the dose range of 30-40 mg/m2) as a radiosensitizer between July 2015 and August 2015. The antiemetic prophylaxis schedule provided was classified as optimal (if a high antiemetic prophylaxis was provided) or suboptimal (if a nonhigh antiemetic prophylaxis was provided). The incidence of acute, delayed and breakthrough vomiting after chemotherapy was noted. SPSS version 20 was used for analysis. Fisher's exact test was used to determine the association between antiemetic schedule (suboptimal vs. optimal) and postchemotherapy emesis.

RESULTS

In the present study, of 181 patients, only 25 patients (13.8%) received optimal antiemetic prophylaxis while the remaining 156 (86.2%) received suboptimal prophylaxis. In the cohort of patients with suboptimal prophylaxis, dexamethasone was omitted in all patients (100%) while NK receptor antagonist was omitted in 76 patients (48.7%). The rate of vomiting was lower in patients receiving optimal prophylaxis as compared to that in patients receiving suboptimal prophylaxis (12% vs. 39.75%; P - 0.005).

CONCLUSION

Omission of dexamethasone followed by aprepitant was the main reason for suboptimal prophylaxis. High antiemetic prophylaxis in accordance with ASCO guidelines overall decreased the risk of emesis in patients receiving CTRT with weekly cisplatin in the dose range of 30-40 mg/m2.