FOCUS TOPICS CARDIOLOGY OPHTHALMOLOGY FEBRUARY 2015 / $5
Serving a 24 County Area, Including Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery & Tuscaloosa
On Rounds
Fusion Technology Improves Detection of Prostate Cancer By Ann B. DeBellis
Beekeeping physician creates buzz at local hospital A typical workday for Jim Boogaerts, MD doesn’t usually include rescuing homeless animals. But one day last April, he was called upon to round up some strays; thousands, in fact. And furthermore, he provided them with a lovely new home in his own backyard ... page 3
New technology that fuses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound is improving the detection of prostate cancer and helping to avoid unnecessary biopsies. Bryant Poole, MD, of Urology Centers of Alabama, says the technology has been available for about four years but has become more widespread over the past six months. Urology Centers of Alabama is now using the UroNav® system to do MRI/ultrasound fusion biopsies of the prostate. “In the past, we were doing 12-template biopsies, six on each side, and they were just random biopsies,” Poole says. “Studies have shown that some significant cancers have been missed by doing it that way, and our cancer detection rate using the 12-template biopsy is about 32 percent. The MRI/ultrasound fusion will allow us to identify these cancers more specifically, and we will be better able to determine who needs to be treated and who doesn’t.” Poole says that the overall cancer detection rate
Surviving Sudden Death Therapeutic Hypothermia Becoming Standard of Care in Cardiac Arrest For fans of TV medical dramas, reality can come as a shock. Week after week, they are accustomed to seeing defibrillators restoring flat lined heartbeats to happy ever afters ... page 7
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Bryant Poole, MD, of Urology Centers of Alabama, reads MRI results.
UAB Regrows Bones Using Living Membrane By Jane Ehrhardt
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Jason Lowe, MD
A motorcycle accident in December left the soldier on leave from Afghanistan with a broken shin. The bone had punctured through the skin. A month later, the bone became infected despite treatment, and the soldier arrived at the UAB Division of Orthopaedic Surgery. “It had been so severely injured in the crash that over five inches of the bone was dead,” says Jason Lowe, MD, a fellowship-trained orthopedic trauma surgeon at UAB. He is one of only three in the Birmingham area. Lowe used the Masquelet procedure on the soldier’s leg. It requires no external or internal apparatus, braces or screws. Within two months, the soldier had grown back enough new bone to bear full weight. By October, Lowe announced the soldier fully healed. He had been back on active duty since June. “With the Masquelet technique, they’re usually weight-bearing within two months after grafting, and the bone is fully incorporated in three to four months,” Lowe says. The soldier took longer to grow the missing section of bone, because at 14 centimeters, it had been twice the average length for bone regenera(CONTINUED ON PAGE 8)
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