Latest Updates

Shock Wave Lithotripsy: Application and Future Direction

    • We now have a better understanding as to when SWL is the most likely to be effective. Patient and stone factors can now help guide clinicians for when SWL is likely to be more or less effective.
    • Studies have clearly demonstrated that clinicians can minimize kidney injury during SWL by pretreating with 100 to 500 low-energy shock waves and slowly ramping up the SWL energy and by treating at a slow shock wave rate throughout the session.
    • Ultrasonic propulsion, burst wave lithotripsy, and other new therapies are significant advances that are likely to improve the effectiveness of SWL and may broaden the indications and use of SWL in the future.

Medical Management of Neurogenic Bladder

    • First -line therapy for neurogenic bladder with detrusor overactivity, poor compliance, or related incontinence areis antimuscarinic agents,; however, treatment failures need to be addressed quickly, with dose optimization and progression to botulinum toxin.
    • Endless cycling of different oral medications that are ineffective is of little value to the patient because most are pharmacologically quite similar. The provider must move to a more effective therapy, such as botulinum toxin, in a timely fashion.
    • Desmopressin is an often overlooked therapy for nocturnal polyuria, and if other reversible causes are treated and the patient is properly screened, this can be a very therapeutic intervention.

The Risk Of Surgery In Patients With Liver Disease 2

    • Presents extensive evidence-based appreciation of the risks of operating on patients with some non-cirrhotic liver disease, particularly various forms of acute hepatitis —especially alcoholic—acute liver failure, steatosis, and steatohepatitis, and rare entities such as Wilson disease.
    • Substantiates the relative safety of minimally invasive surgery in patients with mild or moderately advanced cirrhosis, compared to open surgery, for many operations.
    • Amasses numerous clinical results that link the outcomes of a wide spectrum of surgical operations in patients with cirrhosis to indices of severity of liver injury, especially the Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) score and class, and/or the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score.
    • Describes a decision tree devised to guide clinicians in determining whether or not to proceed to surgery in any given patient with acute or chronic liver disease, depending on the severity of the liver disease. 

Nephrolithiasis in Pregnancy

    • Low-dose CT use for diagnosis of stones in pregnancy
    • Increased use of ureteroscopy (URS) as primary treatment modality, ultrasonography-guided URS
    • Emerging use of medical expulsive therapy in pregnant women

Imaging for Nephrolithiasis

    Primary Cutaneous Melanoma

      • Wide local excision is the standard of care for resectable nonmetastatic primary cutaneous melanoma.
      • Clinically positive lymph nodes are an indication for therapeutic lymphadenectomy.
      • A positive sentinel lymph node biopsy is an indication to discuss completion lymphadenectomy; however, evidence continues to evolve regarding selection of patients for surgery.
      • Minimally invasive groin lymphadenectomy offers equivalent oncologic outcomes and less associated morbidity than its open counterpart.

    Primary Cutaneous Melanoma

      • Wide local excision is the standard of care for resectable nonmetastatic primary cutaneous melanoma.
      • Clinically positive lymph nodes are an indication for therapeutic lymphadenectomy.
      • A positive sentinel lymph node biopsy is an indication to discuss completion lymphadenectomy; however, evidence continues to evolve regarding selection of patients for surgery.
      • Minimally invasive groin lymphadenectomy offers equivalent oncologic outcomes and less associated morbidity than its open counterpart.

    Prenatal Screening and Diagnosis

      • cfDNA has become a highly effective screen for the common aneuploidies, with a low-risk false positive rate.
      • Microarray has the ability to detect submicroscopic deletions and additions of genetic material, greatly improving our ability to diagnose genetic syndromes prenatally.
      • Compared with traditional karyotype analysis, chromosomal microarray can detect much smaller variations in genetic material and may yield clinically significant information not otherwise detected by karyotype analysis.
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