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PURPOSE: To determine whether postoperative neck pain in the first 4 weeks following multi-level posterior cervical fusion (PCF) with orthosis is equivalent to multi-level PCF without orthosis. METHODS: Patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to postoperative orthosis (CO) for 6 weeks or no orthosis (NO). Randomization was stratified by indication (traumatic vs. degenerative), and preoperative opioid use. A model of longitudinal regression for repeated measures was used. The two-sided 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to test equivalence. If the CI lay between the pre-determined margin of equivalence (-2.0 to + 2.0 pain score) the two groups were considered equivalent. A multiple imputation procedure was used to replace missing data. RESULTS: Thirty-one patients were enrolled in each group. At baseline, the CO group had more neck pain (5.3 vs. 3.2, p = 0.013). The Four week post-operative neck pain intensity score was 4.6 ± 0.3 for the CO group vs. 4.9 ± 0.3 for the NO group. The 95% confidence interval (-1.2 to 0.6) was within the pre-determined equivalence margin. Neck Disability Index, quality-of-life scores, and arm pain were similar. Eleven patients in the CO group and 12 patients in the NO group had an adverse event. The CO group had reduced range of motion at 6 weeks. CONCLUSION: Pain scores over the first 4 weeks after surgery were equivalent for patients undergoing multi-level PCF treated with or without a cervical orthosis. Our findings do not support the routine use of a postoperative cervical orthosis for postoperative pain control. Clinical Trials Registration Number NCT04308122, April 22, 2020.
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Post-hemorrhoidectomy pain is a concerning complication for patients and doctors, mainly due to perianal skin dissection and the complex innervation of the area. Therefore, our aim is to explore the analgesic efficacy and safety of EMLA cream among patients undergoing hemorrhoidectomy. We conducted a comprehensive search of five electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane) from inception until July 6, 2024. A risk of bias assessment was performed using the Risk of Bias Version 2 of the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials (RoB-2). Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included. Our outcomes of interest were pain assessment using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score, patient satisfaction, meperidine dosage, frequency of meperidine requests, and single urinary catheterization. We used RevMan software to conduct the statistical analysis. Dichotomous data were pooled as relative risk (RR), while continuous data were pooled as mean difference (MD). Four RCTs were included in our review. Two RCTs showed a low overall risk of bias, while one RCT showed a high risk, and the last one showed some concerns. Our analysis showed a significant difference between the two groups, favoring the EMLA group over the control group, upon arrival at the recovery room and at night on the day of the operation (MD=-1.76, 95% CI (-3.17, -0.36), p=0.01 and MD=-1.65, 95% CI (-2.48, -0.81), p=0.0001, respectively). However, there was no significant difference between the two groups in the morning on the day after the operation (MD=-0.9, 95% CI (-2.02, 0.21), p=0.11). Moreover, patients who used EMLA cream reported increased patient satisfaction compared to those who did not. However, there was no significant difference between both groups in terms of the use of urinary catheterizations. In conclusion, our study showed that applying EMLA cream over the perianal area after hemorrhoidectomy can effectively reduce postoperative pain and decrease the required opioid dosage and patient requests. This ultimately leads to increased patient satisfaction. However, further studies are still required to confirm these findings.
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Small bowel adenocarcinoma (SBA) is rare cancer that accounts for less than 2% of all gastrointestinal tract cancers. Usually, the clinical presentation is unspecific, and a patient might complain of nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, small bowel obstruction, and small bowel bleeding. Because of these unspecific symptoms, the patient might be diagnosed late, from six to ten months, which affects the prognosis. This study contains a case report of a 38-year female with SBA in the jejunum, with unspecific symptoms. She had a history of recurrent admissions due to acute pancreatitis, acute kidney injury, and hyponatremia caused by dehydration. The patient was diagnosed six months after the first symptoms of nausea and vomiting started. The patient underwent exploratory laparotomy for a jejunal stricture mass, and a lymph node was resected. The course after surgery was smooth, and the patient was discharged home on the fourth-day post-surgery. In conclusion, the symptoms of SBA are unspecific and cannot be diagnosed without complete medical histories and lab examinations, making diagnosing SBA challenging.
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OBJECTIVES: To describe the patterns and outcomes of traumatic spinal injuries (TSIs) in a tertiary care trauma centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. DESIGN: Retrospective medical record review. SETTING: Level 1 trauma centre for all patients presented from 1 February 2016 to 31 December 2018. PARTICIPANTS AND DATA: Records of patients presenting with any spinal trauma were reviewed, and the data obtained included age, gender, nationality (as Saudi and non-Saudi), date of presentation, site of fracture/injury, associated injuries, mechanism of injury, presence of neurological involvement and hospital mortality. MAIN OUTCOMES: Frequencies of different types of TSI across various subgroups. RESULTS: We identified 692 patients who presented with TSI throughout the study period. The mean age was 36.9 years. Males represented 83.2% (n=576) of the sample size, and the most common mechanism of injury was motor vehicle collision (MVC), accounting for 66.8% of cases (n=462), while fall-related injuries were seen in 31.6% of cases (n=219). A total of 454 (65.6%) of all patients were Saudi, and 332 (73.1%) of the TSIs in Saudis were due to MVC. Non-Saudi cases accounted for 238 (34.4%) of all patients, and 89 (37.4%) of the non-Saudi injuries were due to falls from height, and this association was statistically significant (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: TSI was not thoroughly examined in Saudi Arabia; therefore, this study is considered the first to be done in the Kingdom using a representative sample. The fact that non-Saudi patients had a higher proportion of falls as a mechanism of injury should be taken into consideration in terms of raising awareness and taking more safety precautions, as most construction workers tend to be expatriates.