New endoscopic spine surgery in Michigan for disc herniation and/or spinal stenosis. Dr Zamorano and her team are the first and only performing this technique in MI.

Dr. Zamorano performing transforaminal endoscopic discectomy and foraminotomy.

The Michigan Brain and Spine Surgery Center is the first and only practice in Michigan offering the transforaminal endoscopic approach for discetomy and foraminotomy. This minimally invasive technique is an excellent option for patients with disc herniations and/or spinal stenosis.

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Almost a decade has passed since The National Center for Health Statistics con­ducted a study that made Americans aware of the serious dangers that face people of all ages, especially those over 60 who are at risk of falling. In addition to being the number one cause of injury for anyone over the age of 18, it is the leading cause of emergency hospital visits for those over 25 (including broken hips among the elderly, whose bones weaken with age), and, of greatest concern, a contributing cause of death within one year for one out of three such patients.

With the subject of healthcare in the fore­front of today’s news headlines, both politically and economically, this is an ap­propriate time to evaluate the progress that has been made in the treatment of an issue that affects millions of Americans, but most people do not recognize this as being a seri­ous problem until it is too late. The follow­ing profile of a member of a noted medical group practice explains the problem, as well as describes a state-of-the-art technique that health professionals now have available to them to help their patients avoid the dangers of this common risk shared by so many.

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Komotar, Ricardo J.; Starke, Robert M.; Sisti, Michael B.; Connolly, E.

Neurosurgery . 70(6):N22–N23, June 2012.

doi: 10.1227/01.neu.0000414948.56225.36

Oligodendrogliomas comprise approximately 20% of brain tumors in adults, representing the second most common adult brain tumor. These tumors can progress to an anaplastic form, thereby conferring a significantly worse prognosis and poor treatment response. Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of chromosomes 1p and 19q in oligodendrogliomas provides the best measure of prognosis and response to treatment. The translocation of chromosomes produces marker chromosome (1;19) (q10;p10), and the breakpoints are in gene-poor centromeric areas suggesting a likely unmasking of a tumor suppressor genes.

Recently, Bettegowda et al sequenced the coding exons of 20 687 genes in DNA from 7 anaplastic oligodendrogliomas to better understand possible tumor suppressor genes. The authors identified 225 non-synonymous somatic mutations, affecting 200 genes with an average of 32 non-synonymous somatic mutations. Important mutations encountered in select tumors included PIK3, NOTCH1, and IDH1.

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Pharmacoresistant epilepsy develops in approximately 25% to 30% of all epilepsy patients.1 Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) patients tend to be most refractory to treatment with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), accounting for the highest percentage of epilepsy patients without seizure freedom.1 However, despite Wiebe et al demonstrating in a Canadian randomized controlled trial that temporal lobe resection (TLR) led to significantly higher rates of seizure freedom than medical management in patients with MTLE,2 temporal lobe epilepsy surgery remains underutilized. To investigate the potential benefits of early surgical intervention in medically refractory MTLE, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded the Early Randomized Surgical Epilepsy Trial (ERSET), the results of which were recently published in JAMA.3

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New data from the Rush Memory and Aging Project provide more evidence that staying physically active may protect the aging brain from Alzheimer's disease (AD).

In a group of more than 700 elderly individuals free of dementia at baseline, a higher level of total daily physical activity, determined objectively via 24-hour actigraphy, was associated with a lower risk for the subsequent development of AD, as well as a slower rate of cognitive decline.

The association remained "robust" after accounting for a wide variety of potentially confounding factors, and supports efforts to encourage physical activity even in the very old, conclude Aron S. Buchman, MD, from the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, and colleagues.

Their findings were published in the April 24 issue of Neurology.

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