Editor's Note High-risk, noncancerous flat epithelial atypia (FEA) breast lesions can be treated with close observation rather than surgical removal in most cases, this study finds. The analysis of 208 patients diagnosed with FEA over a 9-year period found that after mammography, biopsy, and surgical excision, five lesions (2.4%) were…

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Editor's Note A patient’s waist measurement can predict the risk of complications and death after emergency general surgery, finds this study presented October 26 at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2017 in San Diego. Included in the study were 608 emergency general surgery patients who had preoperative CT…

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Editor's Note A new app developed by students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s (UWM’s) App Brewery and a neuropsychologist at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) monitors critical brain functions during neurosurgical procedures in which patients are awake. The app, called “NeruoMapper,” assists neurosurgeons who are removing tumors by helping…

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Editor's Note The Philadelphia Pediatric Medical Device Consortium (PPMDC) has chosen two companies out of eight finalists to receive grants of $50,000 each to develop medical devices for children. The devices include a: speech generating system that allows hospitalized children who are unable to speak to communicate with clinicians handheld…

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Editor's Note In this pilot trial, surgeons used a pair of magnets (ie, Harrison rings) to create an intestinal anastomosis without sutures or staples in five patients. For each procedure, one Harrison ring was placed in the lumen of each intestinal segment, and then the rings were brought together and…

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Editor's Note Researchers in the departments of anesthesia and biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University have created a device that removes alarm sounds while preserving an ICU patient’s ability to hear human and environmental stimuli, notably speech. The in-ear device, which is worn by the patient, eliminates alarm sounds from the…

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Editor's Note In this single institution study, the most common reasons for unplanned return to the OR (uROR) were infection and hemorrhage. However, the researchers found that a large number of cases were incorrectly classified as uROR, when they were instead planned reoperations without adequate documentation. Using uROR as reported…

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Editor's Note Thirty-day data from the 225-patient LUCY (Evaluation of FemaLes who are Underrepresented Candidates for Abdominal Aortic AneurYsm Repair) Study showed that at least 28% more women became eligible for  minimally invasive endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair when using Endologix’s (Irvine, California) Ovation abdominal stent graft system, according…

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Editor's Note Managing appendicitis with antibiotics on an outpatient basis shows promise as a safe, effective, lower-cost alternative to surgery, this study finds. Of 30 patients involved in the trial, 15 were randomized to antibiotics and 14 to appendectomy. A total of 14 patients in the antibiotic group were discharged from…

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Editor's Note A team of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) biologists have found that combinations of three different antibiotics can overcome a bacteria’s resistance, even when none of the three on its own or two together is effective, the February 7 UCLA Newsroom reports. The biologists created a mathematical…

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