Written for www.physiciansweekly.com by: Christopher P. Chiodo, MD
Attending Orthopedic Surgeon Chief, Foot and Ankle Service
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Faulkners Hospitals
Clinical Instructor
Harvard Medical School
President
Massachusetts Orthopaedic Association

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons has released treatment guidelines on acute Achilles tendon rupture, emphasizing early motion and weight-bearing to enhance the return of function.

When an Achilles tendon ruptures, the forces placed on the tendon exceed its tensile limits. Patients who sustain these injuries often experience sudden pain in the affected leg, difficulty with weight-bearing, and weakness of the affected ankle. “The Achilles tendon is one of the strongest tendons in the body, and a rupture can be quite disabling,” explains Christopher P. Chiodo, MD.

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Keloids are tumors formed as a result of hyperproliferation of fibroblasts. They appear mostly in places of an injury but they can also appear without any specified reasons. Areas especially vulnerable to kleoids formation are neck and chest skin. There are also special individual predispositions for prevalence of the tumor. The black race is more often affected by Keliods. (4) Read full text »

The bones of the skull form a natural shield for the delicate structures of the brain. Unfortunately sometimes part of the cranial bones have to be removed due to cancer or injury. Large defects of the skull structures are a major functional and aesthetic issue. First attempts of supplementing the loss of bone structures with the use of gold alloys took place already around 3000 years b.c. Since that time filling the defects in the cranial structures evolved from the primitive metal plates through the tantalum plate, to the modern plastics and biomaterials. Meanwhile the new CAD/CAM technology increasingly gains interest of surgeons, as it enables the production of individual prostheses of perfectly matched shape and dimentions. Read full text »