Such instrumentation negates many of the advantages offered by device miniaturisation, particularly with respect to overall portability. In this article, we present a CO2 laser ablation technique for rapidly prototyping on-chip planar lenses, in conjunction with capillary action based autonomous microfluidics, to create a miniaturised and fully integrated optical biosensing platform. The presented
AC220 self-aligned on-chip optical components offer an efficient means to direct excitation light within microfluidics and to directly couple light from a LED source. The device has been used in conjunction with a miniaturised and bespoke fluorescence detection platform to create a complete, palm sized system (approximate to 60 x 80 x 60 mm) capable of performing fluoro-immunoassays. The system has been applied to the detection of cardiac GSK1120212 clinical trial Troponin I, one of the gold standard biomarkers for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction, achieving a lower detection limit of 0.08 ng/ml, which is at the threshold of clinically applicable concentrations. The portable nature of
the complete system and the biomarker detection capabilities demonstrate the potential of the devised instrumentation for use as a medical diagnostics device at the point of care. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.”
“Background: Surgical site infection in the spine is a serious postoperative complication. Factors such as posterior surgical approach, arthrodesis, use of spinal instrumentation, age, obesity, diabetes, tobacco use, operating-room environment, and estimated blood loss are well established in the literature to affect the risk of infection. The goal of this study was to analyze and identify independent risk factors for surgical site infection among spine patients undergoing posterior lumbar instrumented arthrodesis.
Methods: The medical records of 3218 patients who underwent posterior
lumbar instrumented arthrodesis from January 2000 to December 2006 were reviewed to identify those who developed a postoperative infection (eighty-four URMC-099 research buy patients; 2.6%). The size of this single-institution patient group allowed construction of a multivariate logistic regression model to evaluate the independent associations of potential risk factors for surgical site infection in the spine.
Results: In the final regression model, obesity, estimated intraoperative blood loss, ten or more people in the operating room, a dural tear, history of diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary heart disease, and osteoporosis were critical risk factors for the onset of spinal surgical site infection. Obesity and a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were the strongest risk factors for postoperative spinal infection after adjusting for all other variables. The most common pathogen was methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus with a prevalence of 34.5%.