Efficacy of Nd-YAG laser for treatment of pyogenic granuloma on the fingers and toes.

Pyogenic granuloma (PG) is a common benign vascular proliferation which often occurs on the head, neck, hands, and feet. Among the various treatment options for PG, surgical excision is the most effective treatment which offers the lowest overall recurrence rates and also provides the exact diagnosis. However, it could have difficulties to do the surgery when lesions are located on the fingers and toes, especially very near to the nails, so laser may be a very good alternative choice. In this article, we evaluated the clinical efficacy and safety of neodymium-yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) laser for treatment of PG located on the fingers and toes. Twenty-one patients with 21 PGs located on the fingers and toes were treated by multispot Nd-YAG laser. We chose monopulse (pulse width 10.5-13.5 ms; energy 100-125 J/cm2); treatment interval was 3-4 weeks. All lesions disappeared after one or two treatments. There was no apparent scar formation, no impact on the function of the fingers and toes, no damage to nail growth, and no recurrence in more than 12-month follow-up. Nd-YAG is an effective and safety treatment option for treatment of PG located on the fingers and toes.

Development of measuring diffusion coefficients by digital holographic interferometry in transparent liquid mixtures.

As for the measurement of diffusion coefficient in transparent liquids by digital holographic interferometry, there are many kinds depending on the mathematical model and experimental setup. The method of using the distance of the peaks in concentration difference profile to determine diffusion coefficient by Mach-Zehnder interferometric experimental setup, is easy to handle. In order to improve the accuracy and convenience of measurement in this method, we combine procedures of hologram analysis used by Mialdun et al (2011) and those by He et al (2009). By using polynomial to fit the continuous phase difference (interference phase) of object beam, it can be more convenient and accurate to determine the distance between the two peaks. Besides, the shift of initial time has been discussed as a separated topic at the first time and two functions for minimization have been given for determination of the initial time in this paper. With the development, diffusion coefficient of KCl in water at 0.33mol/L and 25 °C has been measured. The diffusion coefficient is 1.844 × 10(-9) m2/s with the uncertainty of ± 0.012 × 10(-9) m2/s. Our measurement has more similar result with other methods than holographic interferometry. The relative uncertainty of diffusion coefficient in our experiment is less than 1% and total uncertainty of temperature is within ± 0.04 K.

Increased survival rate in patients with massive burns.

A review of 113 patients with massive burns treated in our centre from 1970 to 1989 is presented. There were 57 adults patients with massive burns (> or = 50 per cent TBSA) in 1980-89 who were compared with 56 patients with similar massive burns in the period between 1970 and 1979. The results show a significant improvement (P < 0.01) in survival rate of the more recent patients. The increased survival rate is attributed to improvements in the early treatment of inhalation injury, sepsis and multiorgan failure.