Pneumatic tourniquets are widely used in surgery of the extremities to occlude the vessels of the limb, thereby providing a bloodless field for dissection so that the surgeon may operate more quickly and accurately. Over-pressurization of the tourniquet cuff may lead to postoperative complications such as temporary or permanent paralysis of the limb. This motivated the development of adaptive tourniquet systems which could regulate the tourniquet pressure just above the limb occlusion pressure (LOP), or the minimum tourniquet pressure required to prevent blood flow past the cuff for a given duration. Previous adaptive tourniquet systems suffered from several problems which limited their practical utility in the operating room. This thesis describes the adaptation of oscillometry, a technique widely used in the noninvasive estimation of blood pressure, to the estimation of LOP in the surgical environment for application in a clinically practical adaptive tourniquet system. Improved oscillometric LOP estimation performance was obtained through the development of a filter for increasing the signal-to-noise ratio of the oscillometric pulses during periods of limb manipulation, the development of a heuristic real-time pattern recognition algorithm for extracting oscillometric pulses from signal data corrupted by limb movements, and the development of a new method for rapidly estimating the LOP which needs only one-third of the signal data required by a widely-used oscillometric approach to produce an estimate of comparable accuracy. In addition to these contributions, a new tourniquet cuff was developed which achieves an improved fit to the limb, thereby enhancing performance and reliability over that obtained from conventional tourniquets as both an oscillometric occlusion sensor and as a limb-occluding device. An adaptive tourniquet system which integrated these improvements was developed and used in a clinical study involving four orthopaedic surgeons and 16 patients. Clinical trials of the latest system version in which circumstances permitted the use of adaptive control showed that the average limb-applied pressure was reduced by 35%, or from the conventional standard of 250 mm Hg to 162 mm Hg, in the upper limb surgeries, and by 38%, or from the conventional standard of 300 mm Hg to 187 mm Hg, in the lower limb surgeries. These significant reductions in the pressure indicate the potential effectiveness of adaptive tourniquet control and improved cuff design on reducing the risk of patient injuries from excessive tissue compression. Furthermore, unlike all previous implementations, this system is currently being evaluated on a routine basis in orthopaedic surgical procedures performed at Vancouver General Hospital. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of / Graduate

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Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1992.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1992.

Class of 2006 Abstract / Objectives: To determine the cost-effectiveness of urokinase (UK) and alteplase (recombinant tissue plasminogen activator, rt-PA) when used intra-arterially for the treatment of acute peripheral arterial occlusions. Methods: A decision analytic model was constructed using TreeAge Pro 2005 Suite to determine the cost- effectiveness of these therapies. Data for costs and probabilities were collected from published literature, as well as other references. Average and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were calculated with a 95% confidence interval. A two-dimensional (sampling plus trials) Monte Carlo analysis with 5,000 patients was performed, along with a sensitivity analysis of the costs and variables. The costs measured were direct medical costs from the perspective of the healthcare institution. The primary outcome variable assessed in this model was 30-day survival. Results: The Monte Carlo microsimulation indicated that average cost-effectiveness (C/E) ratio for rt-PA was $54,141 (95th CI: 44,647 to 62,832) per successful treatment, while the average C/E ratio for UK was $65,515 (95th CI: 56,286 to 76,135). The ICER for rt-PA versus UK as the baseline was calculated to be $284,170 per additional survival over 30 days (95th CI: 186,097 to 418,443). Neither strategy was dominant. Conclusions: This study found rt-PA to be less costly but also slightly less efficacious than UK for patients treated for acute arterial occlusions. Neither therapy was indicated to be dominant over the other in terms of 30-day survival. Further long-term outcome data is necessary to more extensively assess the benefits of each therapy.

Kang, Ning. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references. / Abstract also in Chinese. / Abstracts --- p.i / Abbreviations --- p.v / List of Figures and Tables --- p.vii / Contents --- p.viii / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1. --- Saphenous vein graft patency after coronary artery bypass grafting --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- Mechanism of vein graft failure and therapeutic strategies --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- Mechanism --- p.15 / Chapter 2.2 --- Therapeutic strategies --- p.18 / Chapter 3. --- Summary --- p.22 / Chapter 4. --- References --- p.23 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Animal model and laboratory investigations --- p.34 / Chapter 1. --- Surgical procedure --- p.35 / Chapter 2. --- Postoperative management --- p.37 / Chapter 3. --- Adenoviral-mediated gene transfer ex vivo for gene therapy study --- p.38 / Chapter 4. --- Laboratory investigations --- p.39 / Chapter 5. --- Statistical analysis --- p.40 / Chapter 6. --- Summary --- p.41 / Chapter 7. --- References --- p.41 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- "Impact of osteopontin expression in vein grafts on VSMC migration, proliferation, and neointimal formation" --- p.42 / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.42 / Chapter 2. --- Methods and materials --- p.43 / Chapter 3. --- Results --- p.43 / Chapter 4. --- Discussion --- p.49 / Chapter 5. --- Summary --- p.52 / Chapter 6. --- References --- p.53 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Potential Role of gene therapy in prevention of vein graft failure --- p.56 / Chapter 1. --- Vectors --- p.56 / Chapter 2. --- "Reporter gene, timing and titer" --- p.57 / Chapter 3. --- Candidate genes --- p.58 / Chapter 4. --- Summary --- p.64 / Chapter 5. --- References --- p.66 / Chapter Chapter 5: --- Conclusions --- p.70 / Acknowledgements --- p.72