Conclusion. Facet joints may be abnormally Stem Cell Compound Library in vivo stressed due to the increasing thoracic flexion moment in anterior compression fractures, which may serve as a secondary pain generator; intra-articular facet blocks may be an alternative to vertebroplasty.”
“A new step-by-step comprehensive MR physics simulator (MRISIMUL) of the Bloch
equations is presented. The aim was to develop a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) simulator that makes no assumptions with respect to the underlying pulse sequence and also allows for complex large-scale analysis on a single computer without requiring simplifications of the MRI model. We hypothesized that such a simulation platform could be developed with parallel acceleration of the executable core within the graphic processing unit (GPU) environment. MRISIMUL integrates realistic aspects of the MRI experiment from signal generation to image formation and solves the entire complex problem for densely spaced isochromats and for a densely spaced time axis. The simulation platform was developed in MATLAB whereas the computationally demanding core services were developed in CUDA-C. The MRISIMUL simulator imaged three different computer models: a user-defined phantom, a human brain model and a human heart model. The high computational power of GPU-based simulations
was compared against other computer configurations. A speedup of about 228 AP26113 supplier times was achieved when compared to serially executed C-code on the CPU whereas a speedup between 31 to 115 times was achieved when compared to the OpenMP parallel executed C-code on the CPU, depending on the number of threads used in multithreading (2-8 threads). The high performance of MRISIMUL allows its application in large-scale analysis and can bring the computational power of a supercomputer or a large computer cluster to a single GPU personal computer.”
“Background and Purpose. Epidural injections are commonly utilized procedure in pain clinics;
these procedures are not without complications. We present a rare air entrapment within the substance of the spinal cord causing symptoms of myelopathy.
Methods. Report of a case.
Results. A 56-year-old woman with chronic cervical pain HSP inhibitor review underwent an elective cervical epidural injection. A small amount of Lidocaine was injected at the left cervical 7 to test needle patency; she immediately complained of severe cervical pain radiated to the left upper and lower extremities. The procedure was immediately terminated and needle was removed. Post-operative neurological examination revealed mild left lower extremity weakness and left hemiataxia. An immediate MRI of the cervical spine showed an air bubble within the cervical spinal cord that has resolved on the following imaging. The clinical syndrome also completely resolved.
Conclusion. Although rare, epidural cervical injection can be complicated by air myelopathy.