Common urological problems in children: inguinoscrotal pathologies

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Common urological problems in children: prepuce, phimosis, and buried penis

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Surgical outcomes of patients with neuroblastoma in a tertiary centre in Hong Kong: A 12-year experience

Introduction: Neuroblastoma has a heterogeneous clinical course. The prognosis varies widely depending on the age of diagnosis, extent of disease and tumour biology. However, the specific clinical outcome of this disease in Hong Kong has not been well characterised thus far. Complete tumour excision has been demonstrated to confer survival benefit on patients with advanced disease even if there is metastasis. Since year 2004, we have adopted a revised, more aggressive surgical approach in managing these patients. Here, we aim to review our experience in the management of this disease. Methods: A retrospective review was performed for the past 12 years to include all patients who presented with neuroblastoma in our institution. Data such as the survival, age at diagnosis, MYCN amplification status, the extent of tumour excision, and stage of the disease were recorded and analysed. Results: 37 patients were included in this study. Overall survival of our patients was 67.6%. Patients with Stage 1, 2 and 4S have 100% survival whereas stage 4 patients only have 41.4% survival. Since our revised surgical approach in 2004, patients who had been operated had a better survival. Survival of stage 4 patients with operation after 2004 was 57.1% whereas the survival of patients at the same stage before 2004 was only 30%. Age at diagnosis, completeness of tumour excision and stage of disease are also correlated with overall prognosis. Further, patients with the presence of MYCN gene amplification have apparently poorer survival but it is not statistically significant due to the small sample size. Conclusion: The management of patients with neuroblastoma remains a challenge. Advanced stage of disease, incomplete tumour excision and increased age at diagnosis were all associated with poor survival. We demonstrated a better survival for those who underwent a more aggressive surgical approach, though this is a technically demanding and time consuming procedure. Thus, the management of advanced neuroblastoma should be centralised in a centre with combined surgical, oncological and paediatric intensive care expertise.published_or_final_versio

Evaluation of defecative function 5 years or longer after laparoscopic-assisted pull-through for imperforate anus

Background: Laparoscopic anorectoplasty was introduced in 2000, but the procedure has not yet gained universal acceptance. Previous studies, including ours, reported satisfactory early postoperative outcome as compared with posterior sagittal anorectoplasty (PSARP), but mid- to long-term results are not available. Here, we aim to evaluate the mid- to long-term defecative function in these patients. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study was carried out and included all patients who underwent laparoscopic-assisted anorectoplasty for high-/intermediate-type imperforate anus between 2001 and 2005. Their degree of continence was graded according to the Krickenbeck classification and compared with historical controls treated with PSARP. The results were compared using χ 2 test, and P .05). Conclusions: Mid- to long-term follow-up study revealed satisfactory defecative function for patients with high-/intermediate-type imperforate anus after LAR. The outcome is at least as good as PSARP. Longer term follow-up with larger sample size is necessary to demonstrate the benefits of LAR over PSARP. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.postprin

Pixel super-resolution in serial time-encoded amplified microscopy (STEAM)

Paper no. CTu3J.4We propose pixel super-resolution serial time-encoded amplified microscopy (STEAM) for achieves high speed and high-resolution imaging - relaxing the stringent requirement on the digitizer bandwidth while preserving the ultrahigh frame-rate (>MHz). © 2012 OSA.published_or_final_versio

Broadband optical chaos for stimulated Brillouin scattering suppression in power over fiber

Broadband chaos generated in an optically injected semiconductor laser is applied for power-over-fiber transmission. By varying the injection power, period-one oscillation, period-two oscillation, and chaotic oscillation are observed in the injected slave laser, indicating a period-doubling route to chaos. Compared to the free-running output of the laser, its chaotic output has a drastically increased signal bandwidth, which leads to a 19 dB increase of the stimulated Brillouin scattering threshold. Using a chaos of 5:2GHz bandwidth, a maximum optical power of 27dBm is obtained after 20km transmission over fiber, which is applicable to optically powering some advanced communication networks. The approach uses the inherent nonlinear laser dynamics, which requires no modulation electronics or microwave signal sources. © 2011 Optical Society of America.published_or_final_versio

Speed-dependent resolution analysis of ultrafast laser-scanning fluorescence microscopy

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Sir Patrick Manson: good medicine for the people of Hong Kong

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The first report of a single-port laparoscopic nephrectomy in a child

There has been an exponential rise in the use of minimally invasive procedures in surgery, with obvious benefts to patients. Recently, transumbilical single-port laparoscopic surgery has been championed as the next major technical advance. In this article, we report the frst case where single-port laparoscopic surgery has been used to manage a paediatric problem in the region.published_or_final_versio

Comparison of effects of sleeve gastrectomy, duodenal-jejunal bypass and ileal transposition for the treatment of type II diabetes

This journal suppl. entitled: 2014 DDW AbstractThe SSAT’s 55th Annual Meeting took place during Digestive Disease Week 2014SSAT Poster Session (8215) - Stomach: Basic (I)BACKGROUND: Sleeve gastrectomy (SG), duodenal jejunal bypass (DJB) and ileal transposition (IT) have been reported to be effective for the treatment of T2DM. It is unknown which procedure has a stronger anti-diabetic effect. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of these novel procedures METHODS: SG, DJB, IT and ...postprin