[Extracorporeal lung support and endovascular stent in traumatic aortic rupture and severe lung failure]. / Pumpenlose extrakorporale Lungenunterstützung und endovaskuläres Stenting bei traumatischer Aortenruptur und schwerem Lungenversagen.

Blunt thoracic injury in association with aortic rupture represents a life-threatening situation. Surgical repair used to be the preferred method of treatment. Because most patients are multiple trauma patients including head injuries, bone fractures and respiratory failure, urgent surgical procedures portend excessively high morbidity and mortality rates. Delay in operative management bears the risk of exsanguinating hemorrhage, secondary complications, prolonged hospital stay with increased costs. We present here an alternative treatment protocol including pumpless extracorporal lung assist and endovascular aortic stent graft placement in a 20-year old traffic accident victim. This procedure may be an especially useful treatment option in managing patients with complex lung and aortic pathology primarily not suitable for transportation or surgery.

[Improvement of the amplification rate of human chondrocytes with IGF-I and RGD]. / Verbesserung der Amplifikationsrate humaner Chondrozyten unter dem Einfluss von IGF-I und RGD.

Human chondrocytes were incubated under following conditions: Group 1 (control group): Incubation in 25 cm2 cell culture flasks (Costar) with RPMI-medium (6%-AB-serum, L-Glutamin, Hepes-buffer and antibiotics); Group 2: Different concentrations of IGF-I (1 ng/ml, 10 ng/ml) were added to the RPMI-medium; Group 3: Incubation (like control group) with additional coating of the cell culture flasks with different concentrations of RGD (5 mg/ml; 7.5 mg/ml; 10 mg/ml; 20 mg/ml); Group 4: Combination of coating with RGD (5 mg/ml; 10 mg/ml) and addition of IGF-I (1 ng/ml; 10 ng/ml) to the medium. The cells of the control group could be doubled within 2 weeks. The amplification rate of the groups 2 and 3 was improved in comparison to group 1 with the following maxima: Group 2 (5 mg/ml RGD) 3.1 times and group 3 (1 ng/ml IGF-I) 2.6 times of the number of the cells in the beginning. Group 4 (RGD and IGF-I) showed additive effects, for 4.1 times of the number of the cells in the beginning could be counted after 14 days. RGD and IGF-I (groups 2 to 4) made possible an earlier dedifferentiation and adhesion of the cells to the bottom of the cell culture flasks. By using both growth factors (RGD and IGF-I), the number of the cells could be enhanced more than 2 times in comparison to the control group within the same time. So less than half of the autologous patient's cartilage is necessary for cultivation of hyaline cartilagee.