NEW YORK, N.Y. (Ivanhoe Newswire)— More than 100,000 children in the United States are diagnosed with scoliosis every year. Some need bracing to straighten the curvature of the spine. For more severe cases, doctors perform surgery to fuse the spine, which stops the progression and pain, but limits mobility. Now a new procedure may allow young athletes to continue to compete.
Fifteen-year-old Alivia McCord lives to dance, but this nationally ranked competitor almost had to give it all up.
“I was in my dance costume, and my mom noticed that I was crooked. My hips were crooked,” Alivia McCord told Ivanhoe.
Doctors diagnosed Alivia with scoliosis and recommended immediate surgery to fuse her back, which would have limited her bending or twisting. Instead, the McCord’s decided to try a non-invasive back brace, but…
“When we did the out of brace x-ray, they took her out of her brace for like four days, her curve went right back,” Donna McCord, Alivia’s mom, shared.
That’s when the McCord’s sought out scoliosis specialist, Dr. Barron Lonner. Dr. Lonner recommended a new procedure called vertebral body tethering or VBT.
“So, the benefit of tethering is we don’t permanently alter the spine and we maintain flexibility and some growth for the patients,” said Dr. Lonner, the chief of minimally invasive scoliosis surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Instead of opening the back, surgeons access a patient’s spine through tiny holes in their side.
Dr. Lonner elaborated, “What we do is place screws into the vertebral bodies, which are the building blocks of the spine.”
Then surgeons maneuver a flexible cord into the back, and anchor it to the screws. The tethering corrects the curvature, but still allows patients almost full movement. Six weeks after surgery, Alivia was back to training and performing.
“I was so happy that I was just back on my dance floor, and I could just dance again,” Alivia McCord announced.
Surgeons have been performing VBT in clinical trials for about ten years, but the procedure was approved by the FDA in 2019. The most common patient for this procedure is someone who is age ten or older and is still growing. Doctors say that growth allows them to get more correction over time. However, some doctors also consider patients, like Alivia, who wouldn’t do well with a traditional fusion.
Contributors to this news report include: Cyndy McGrath, Producer; Kirk Manson, Videographer; Roque Correa, Editor.
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Source:
https://www.scoliosisassociates.com/treatments/non-fusion-corrective-surgery/)
MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS
RESEARCH SUMMARY
TOPIC: BLAST AWAY KIDNEY STONES WITH MOSES
REPORT: MB #4931
BACKGROUND: Kidney stones are hard deposits made of mineral and salts that form inside your kidneys. Kidney stones are caused by excess body weight and diet. The stones can affect any part of your urinary tract, from the kidneys to the bladder. The stones form when the urine becomes concentrated which allows minerals to crystalize and stick together. Passing the kidney stones is painful but the stones cause no permanent damage if they are found in a timely manner. If the stones become clogged in the urinary tract and cause complications surgery may be needed.
(Source: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/kidney-stones/symptoms-causes/syc-20355755)
CURRENT TREATMENT: There are different types of treatments depending on the size of the kidney stones. If the stone is small, treatments such as drinking water and pain relievers may help. Drinking water will prevent stones from forming, pain relievers will relieve pain when passing the stones. Large stones require much more extensive treatment, including surgery to remove the stones. If the stone is medium-sized the doctor can use a scope to remove it. To remove a smaller stone in your ureter or kidney, your doctor may pass a thin lighted tube equipped with a camera through your urethra and bladder to your ureter. Once the stone is located, special tools can snare the stone or break it into pieces that will pass in your urine.
(Source: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/kidney-stones/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20355759)
NEW TECHNOLOGY: Holmium laser technology has advanced incrementally through several generations in a way that’s very similar to developments in mobile phones, in that each generation provides users with greater speed and versatility. MOSES technology marked the fourth-generation holmium laser system. The MOSES technology is a platform that manipulates the holmium laser waveform, as well as the first technology to deliver holmium energy over two pulses. The approach allows MOSES to deliver more energy to the stone, achieve finer fragmentation, and produce less retropulsion, which improves visualization and spontaneous stone clearance for laser lithotripsy, allowing doctors to treat it more efficiently.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS REPORT, PLEASE CONTACT:
AUDRA B. FRIIS
AUDRA@PASCALECOMMUNICATIONS.COM
If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Marjorie Bekaert Thomas at mthomas@ivanhoe.com
