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#1. Adverse reactions during endovascular treatment of
aortic aneurysms may be triggered by interleukin 6 release from the
thrombotic content. Swartbol P,Truedsson L, Norgren L.
For a direct link to thispaper, click here.
Comment by mdt: The abstract speaks for itself, but I am especially
impressed with how "clean" the results are on inspection of Figure 1 in
particular. This study should provide a useful approach to
downmodulating the systemic inflammatory response syndrome(SIRS) that
occurs in some patients.
2. Pathogenesis of abdominal aortic aneurysms:Possible role of differential production of proteoglycans by smooth muscle cells. Melrose J,Whitelock J, Xu Q, Ghosh P. For a direct link to thispaper, click here.
Comment by mdt: This is a complicated paper with lots of interesting
data, especially, in my opinion, the unequivocal finding in Fig 1
that chondroitin sulfate is "largely undetectable" after three days in
SMC's cultured from AAA, but abundant in cultures
of cells from AOD and Normal vessels.
I wish the authors had commented on whether the SMC's
from AAA displayed different growth properties (eg time to confluence,
morphology, etc) since they speculate that the alteration in phenotype
is stable without environmental influences.
#3. Immediate and late explantation of endovascularaortic grafts:
the EVT experience. Jacobowitz GR, LeeAM, Riles TS.
For a direct link to this paper, click here.
Comment by mdt: Frankly, these results are better than I expected,
especially because EVT was the first deviceto enter trials and
the whole learning curve lay in front of the investigators. The
technology continuesto advance as also shown in the next paper.
#4. AneuRx stent graft versus open surgical repairof AAA:
Multicenter prospective clinical trial. Zarins CK et al, for the
investigators of the Medtronic AneuRxMulticenter Clinical Trial.
For a direct link to thispaper, click here.
Comment by mdt: Well, I'm finally caught up with my backlog from 1998,
and I'm going to take a short leave of absence from this feature. I was
offered a fellowship to be a Visiting Scientist in Residence at the
medical school in Dunedin, New Zealand, for a month; along with
invitations to speak at the Australasian College of Surgeons meeting,
and also a meeting in Italy. So, I'm going to take a "mini"
sabbatical for several weeks to see how much I can learn from my
scientific colleagues and surgeon friends abroad. It will also be fun to
circumnavigate the globe again. Hope to be catching up this
feature in late May or early June. So long,
mdt