[The first experience with a new technique of portal endoscopic discectomy for herniated cervical discs]. / Pervyi opyt primeneniya novoi tekhniki portal'noi endoskopicheskoi diskektomii pri gryzhakh mezhpozvonkovykh diskov sheinogo otdela pozvonochnika.

Choosing the most appropriate tactics for surgical treatment of herniated cervical discs is a topical issue to be discussed. The idea of herniated disc removal using an endoscopic technique is not new. This is routine surgery for the lumbar spine. However, application of endoscopic techniques in surgery on the cervical spine was first reported only in 2014 (J. Yang, et al.). OBJECTIVE: To master the methodology of a new technique, portal endoscopic discectomy, and define the indications for this surgery on herniated cervical discs; to compare outcomes of this surgery with outcomes of anterior microsurgical discectomy. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study included 25 patients who underwent portal endoscopic cervical discectomy. A comparison group consisted of 25 patients who underwent anterior microsurgical discectomy and placement of an interbody cage. RESULTS: A comparison of the results of surgeries revealed no significant difference (p>0.05) in the degree of postoperative local and radicular pain syndrome. According to the Neck Disability Index (NDI), a significant improvement occurred in patients with endoscopic surgery. According to the Odom criterion, a significant advantage in the number of excellent and good outcomes occurred in patients of the study group. There were significant differences between groups in the duration of postoperative hospital stay. The duration was 3 days in the study group and 5 days in the control group, on average. CONCLUSION: Portal endoscopic discectomy is highly efficient in treatment of herniated cervical discs and enables achieving clinical outcomes associated with much less surgical trauma. The study demonstrates not only the efficacy of the suggested technique but also its safety compared to that of traditional anterior microsurgical techniques that usually involve interbody fusion. This surgery surpasses other interventions in the rate of rehabilitation and social adaptation of patients as well as reduces postoperative hospital stay.

[A comparative analysis of the effectiveness and potential of endoscopic and microsurgical resection of disc herniations in the lumbosacral spine].

The issue of advantage of endoscopic treatment of spinal disc herniations is debatable. Throughout the development, endoscopic technologies have been compared to microsurgical methods. The two-year experience of applying endoscopic methods was analyzed. The study included 183 patients. The effectiveness of the performed treatment was evaluated according to the MacNab scale of surgical treatment outcomes. Good and excellent results were obtained in 170 cases, which amounted to 92.9%. This cure rate was compared to the similar rate for good and excellent results of the microsurgical treatment method derived from the literature data. The article by American authors who conducted a multicenter study (Lumbar microdiscectomy: a historical perspective and current technical considerations. Koebbe C.J., Maroon J.C., Abla A., El-Kadi H., Bost J. Neurosurg Focus 2002 Aug 15; 13(2): E3) was used. On the basis of this study, the data on higher effectiveness of endoscopic discectomy compared to the microsurgical technique were obtained. The technical capabilities of the endoscopic method for removing spinal disc herniations in comparison to minimally invasive microsurgical techniques were carefully analyzed. It was noted that there were no significant instrumental limitations for using endoscopic techniques, while angled optics and excellent color rendition enable better visualization of the surgical wound structures and more efficient use of the approach space. Given that the technical characteristics and capabilities of this method are not inferior to those of the microsurgical technique, the former technology can be used instead of the standard technique for removing intervertebral disc herniations. Furthermore, the technical capabilities of the method allow performing wide decompression of the neural structures during surgery, which can be used to treat spinal stenoses.

Polymorphism of insertion sites of Ty1-copia class retrotransposons and its use for linkage and diversity analysis in pea.

A sample of 15 cultivars and 56 Pisum accessions from the JIC germplasm core collection has been studied using a modification of the SSAP (sequence-specific amplification polymorphisms) technique; the specific primer was designed to correspond to the polypurine tract (PPT) of PDR1, a Ty1-copia group retrotransposon of pea. Most of these SSAP products were shown to be PDR1 derived. The PDR1 SSAP markers are more informative than previously studied AFLP or RFLP markers and are distributed throughout the genome. Their pattern of variation makes them ideal for integrating genetic maps derived from related crosses. Data sets obtained with AFLP and PDR1 SSAP markers were used to construct neighbour-joining trees and for principal component analysis. These data sets give greater resolution than hitherto available for the characterisation of variation within Pisum, showing that the genus has three main groups: P. fulvum, P. abyssinicum and all other Pisum spp. P. abyssinicum is not a subgroup of cultivated P. sativum, as was previously thought, but has probably been domesticated independently. Modern cultivars are shown to form a single group within Pisum as a whole.

BARE-ID, a representative of a family of BARE-like elements of the barley genome.

In our search for transposable elements in barley, Hordeum vulgare, we have isolated and cloned two BamHI-fragments of 4.7 and 4.2 kb in length containing very abundant DNA sequences. The 4.7 kb fragment is homologous to the extended region, including more than half of the 5'-LTR and some part of the coding domain of BARE-1, a member of copia-like retrotransposon family of barley. The 4.2 kb fragment, bearing homology to BARE-1 and the WIS-2 family isolated from wheat, is unique among studied retroelements of cereals because it consists of two inverted parts, each containing homology to the LTR and UTL of BARE-1. Functional motifs for reverse transcription, two TATA-boxes and two primer-binding sites, were found within the LTRs. The element contained within this fragment was generated by significant rearrangement of a BARE-like retrotransposon, which included inversion of the extended 5'-terminal region and deletion of the internal domain. Therefore this element is named BARE-ID (BARE-inverted, deleted). A family of BARE-like elements is amplified in the H. vulgare genome compared with wild barley species. The terminal inverted repeat of BARE-ID was used as a probe for examination of evolutionary diversity within genus Hordeum. Our data are basically in agreement with the modern classification system. However, they do not support the combination of H. vulgare and H. bulbosum into one group with the same type of genome. New data concerning the possible origin of the polyploid species, H. secalinum, confirm that retrotransposons are a useful tool for phylogenetic studies.