June 1st, 2011 by RamonaBatesMD in Research
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Have you ever lost your sense of smell or taste? Recall how it feels when your face/mouth don’t work properly until the nerve blocks wear off after a dental procedure.
Those are all things (and more) a facial transplant patient has to deal with. The article discussing recovery of sensation after facial transplantation in the May issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery discusses this topic (first reference below).
In addition to reviewing their own face transplant patients (n=4), Dr. Maria Siemionow and colleagues did a literature review (English literature for peer-reviewed articles published between 1940 and 2010) of sensory recovery after various standard nerve repair techniques.
These other nerve repair techniques included repair of the peripheral branches of the trigeminal nerve; sensory return after free tissue transfer (ie noninnervated flaps, including radial forearm, lateral thigh, anterolateral thigh, latissimus dorsi, trapezius, et al and innervated free flaps, including radial forearm, anterolateral thigh, and rectus abdominis musculocutaneous flaps); and sensory recovery following replantation of scalp and forehead. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
December 13th, 2010 by BobDoherty in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
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One of the canards slung at the Affordable Care Act is that it creates “death panels” that would allow the government to deny patients lifesaving treatments, even though two independent and non-partisan fact-checking organizations found it would do no such thing.
I don’t bring this up now to rehash the debate, but because the New York Times had a recent story on Arizona’s decision to deny certain transplants to Medicaid enrollees — “death by budget cuts” in the words of reporter Marc Lacey. His story profiles several patients who died when they were unable to raise money on their own to fund a transplant. Lacey quotes a physician expert on transplants who flatly states: “There’s no doubt that people aren’t going to make it because of this decision.”
Arizona Medicaid officials told the Times that they “recommended discontinuing some transplants only after assessing the success rates for previous patients. Among the discontinued procedures are lung transplants, liver transplants for hepatitis C patients and some bone marrow and pancreas transplants, which altogether would save the state about $4.5 million a year.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
May 6th, 2010 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, Opinion, Research
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Facial transplants, hand replants, and free flaps are only possible in large part due to microsurgery.
I finally got around to reading the “History of Microsurgery.” The article is good reading for anyone interested in the history of microsurgery.
The article, written by Susumu Tamai, M.D., Ph.D., (Japan) was received for publication in Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery on June 14, 2007.
Microsurgery is relatively young, and Dr. Tamai breaks down the history into four periods. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
May 2nd, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Patient Interviews, True Stories, Video
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Mr. Ron Murray, a tranplant heart recipient, tells his story:
From the video:
“If the transplant issue ever comes up for anyone listening, that’s almost the first thing they would think, too. If I had time to think about it over that year, I would have realized ‘Oh, my God.’ I would have apprehension all built up about how I would react to…I mean is it going to change my way of thinking? Is it going to alter my own thoughts? None of that holds up, ultimately.
When I realized that there was going to be forever an emotional component, and maybe a spiritual component to this thing that I hadn’t thought about, is when I became –- God, I don’t even know if I can tell you about it –- that I began to grieve for the donor, that brought me to tears several of those nights. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
