No description available.

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Universiẗat, Diss.--Stuttgart, 2004.

No description available.

Yes / There is a clinical need for novel graft materials for the repair of peripheral nerve defects. A decellularisation process has been developed for porcine peripheral nerves, yielding a material with potentially significant advantages over other devices currently being used clinically (such as autografts and nerve guidance conduits). Grafts derived from xenogeneic tissues should undergo sterilisation prior to clinical use. It has been reported that sterilisation methods may adversely affect the properties of decellularised tissues, and therefore potentially negatively impact on the ability to promote tissue regeneration. In this study, decellularised nerves were produced and sterilised by treatment with 0.1% (v/v) PAA, gamma radiation (25-28 kGy) or E Beam (33-37 kGy). The effect of sterilisation on the decellularised nerves was determined by cytotoxicity testing, histological staining, hydroxyproline assays, uniaxial tensile testing, antibody labelling for collagen type IV, laminin and fibronectin in the basal lamina, and differential scanning calorimetry. This study concluded that decellularised nerves retained biocompatibility following sterilisation. However, sterilisation affected the mechanical properties (PAA, gamma radiation), endoneurial structure and basement membrane composition (PAA) of decellularised nerves. No such alterations were observed following E Beam treatment, suggesting that this method may be preferable for the sterilisation of decellularised porcine peripheral nerves.

MPhilPH / Female tubal sterilisation, often referred to as "tubal ligation" but more often performed these days using laparoscopically-applied metal clips, remains a popular form of contraception in women who have completed their families. A review of the literature on the incidence of failure of tubal sterilisation found many reports of case-series and small clinic-based studies, but only a few larger studies with good epidemiological designs, most recently the US CREST study conducted during the 1980s and early 1990s. The CREST study reported a conditional (life-table) cumulative incidence of failure of 0.55, 0.84, 1.18 and 1.85 per 100 women at 1, 2, 4 and 10 years of follow-up respectively. The study described here estimated a lower bound for the incidence of tubal sterilisation failure in NSW by probabilistically linking routinely-collected hospital admission records for women undergoing sterilisation surgery to hospital admission records for the same women which were indicative of subsequent conception or which represented censoring events such as hysterectomy or death in hospital. Data for the period July 1992 to June 2000 were used. Kaplan-Meier and proportional-hazards survival analyses were performed on the resulting linked data set. The conditional cumulative incidence per 100 women at 1, 2 4 and 8 years of follow-up was estimated to be 0.74 (95% CI 0.68-0.81), 1.05 (0.97-1.13), 1.33 (1.23-1.42) and 1.51 (1.39-1.62) respectively. Forty percent of failures ended in abortion and 14% presented as ectopic pregnancies. Age, private health insurance status and sterilisation in a smaller hospital were all found to be associated with lower rates of failure. Strong evidence of time-limited excess numbers of failures in women undergoing surgery in particular hospitals was also found. The study demonstrates the feasibility of using linked, routinely-collected health data to evaluate relatively rare, long-term outcomes such as sterilisation failure on a population-wide basis.

<p>The purpose of this project has been to cut production costs for the fascia panels of</p><p>Getinge’s largest autoclaves. The cost for the stainless steel plates currently used is very</p><p>high. An alternative material solution could cut costs significantly.</p><p>In addition, improvements have been made to the instrument tower which is a central part</p><p>of the fascia panel. As a result of the new modular design in a new material the</p><p>instrument tower has been improved in several aspects.</p>