Evaluation of the positioning of virtually planned polyetheretherketone patient-specific implants and surgical guides in craniofacial surgery

Purpose: Patient-specific implants (PSIs) and surgical guides are widely used nowadays for the reconstruction of craniofacial defects. In this research, we quantitatively compared the realised position of craniofacial PSIs with the planned position and we calculated the difference between the realised osteotomy and the planned osteotomy if a...

The Value of Tractography: Towards More Accurate Targeting in Deep Brain Stimulation?

<b>Introduction</b>: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an important therapeutic option for various neurological diseases. For certain indications the optimal target cannot be identified on structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but can be visualized with tractography. A recent improvement for clinical practice is the probabilistic...

Do the elderly use thigh push off in sit-to-stand to compensate for a lack of stability?: Application of the Stability Basin method to assess the stability of compensatory sit-to-stand strategies in young and elderly participants

Due to neuromuscular capacity decline, sit-to-stand, an essential daily life activity, is increasingly difficult to perform for elderly. In practice, elderly frequently use compensatory arm-strategies in sit-to-stand. However, the specific advantages of these compensatory strategies are unclear. The focus of this research is to study the...

The Effect of Mechanical Strain on Non-enzymatic Cross-linking of Collagen type II Fibrils in Articular Cartilage

Investigations into mechanotransduction in connective tissue extracellular matrix (ECM) have demonstrated that collagen networks show cell-independent mechanosensitive behavior. It has been suggested that mechanical strain could lead to conformational changes in the molecular structure of collagen, thereby influencing the susceptibility to other...

The Cloud Walker: Performance of a novel prototype of a passive gait orthosis tested by healthy people.

Goal: Build and evaluate the first prototype of the Cloud Walker, a passive assistive gait orthosis. Method: The Cloud Walker uses muscles of the upper body to store energy in the springs at the back of the Cloud Walker. This energy can than be used to swing the legs forward. The Cloud Walker was evaluated by 9 healthy participants walking on a...

User-centered co-development of Artificial Intelligence applications: Towards automated vertebral fracture assessment

Vertebral fractures are the most common osteoporotic fractures, with a prevalence of 12-20% in Europe, making them a major health problem because of the associated morbidity, mortality and costs. Without adequate treatment, vertebral fractures are often followed by subsequent fractures, leading to further invalidation and deterioration of health...

Quantification of postural stability in the healthy population as reference for future research on Dorsal Root Ganglion stimulation in Spinal Cord Injury patients

Introduction: Dorsal-Root-Ganglion (DRG) stimulation has been proposed as a neuromodulatory strategy in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients for the recovery of their impaired postural stability. A detailed evaluation of DRG stimulation-induced effects on postural stability can be obtained by recording center of pressure (CoP) and muscle activity...

The usability of interventional X-ray data for intraoperative prediction of coronary angiography procedure duration

Maximisation of treatment efficiency in hospitals can lead to significant growth in terms of patient satisfaction, staff productivity and hospital revenue. Scheduling for the operating department is currently done manually, using standard values for duration that vary with procedure type. This implies that no patient characteristics nor...

Towards clinical implementation of ultrasound-based navigation for laparoscopic liver resection

Liver cancer ranks seventh in global cancer prevalence and stands as the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Surgical resection is considered the gold standard for treatment of liver malignancies and has witnessed a shift toward minimally invasive techniques in recent decades. Surgeons rely on laparoscopic observations, preoperative...

3D Technology in Manufacturing Pressure Masks for the Treatment of Hypertrophic Scarring following Oncological Facial Reconstruction

Introduction<br/>Transparent facial pressure masks with silicone sheeting are used as a non-invasive treatment option for hypertrophic scarring following oncological facial reconstruction. These masks are fabricated using conventional plaster moulds, which is labour-intensive and requires an experienced orthotist or prosthetist. 3D scanning and...

Is the Microcirculation the Key in Understanding the Development of Shock After Cardiothoracic Surgery?

Cardiothoracic surgery is a common treatment for cardiovascular diseases. Patients are admitted to the ICU after cardiothoracic surgery for continuous monitoring to prevent or treat postoperative complications as much and as soon as possible. One of these complications is the development of circulatory shock. It is likely caused by one or a...

Intratumoral holmium microsphere injection in pancreatic cancer

Introduction: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma holds one of the worst prognosis of all known malignancies. Local treatment options for patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer may increase tumor control and benefit patient survival. This study aimed to test the feasibility of a possible new treatment method utilizing intratumoral holmium...

The future of interventional cardiology: Machine learning algorithms for solving diagnostic and therapeutic challenges

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. In CAD, the coronary arteries, that supply the myocardium with oxygen, are narrowed or even blocked by a process called atherosclerosis. Invasive coronary angiography (ICA) is the gold standard for the diagnosis of CAD, as well as for intraprocedural...

A novel design for decoupling the energy storage and return in passive ankle foot prostheses: A redesign of the VSPA foot

Conventional passive prosthetic feet cannot provide net positive mechanical energy, causing a strong reduction in push-off work. This decrease the comfortable walking speed and increases the metabolic cost of walking in amputees, as more than half of the positive work performed during able-bodied gait is done during the powered plantar flexion...

Mitigating Neuropathic Pain: From Theory to Practice: Inhibiting Neuroma Pain In­-silico and Measuring Neural Activity In­-vivo

<i>Neuropathic pain</i> (NP) affects approximately seven to ten percent of the general population. Seventeen percent of NP patients scored their life as “worse than death”. A myriad of causes may underlie NP, such as stroke or spinal cord injury. Also, damage or disease of the <i>peripheral nervous system</i> (PNS) may result in NP. One of the...

Optimizing Revision Total Knee Arthroplasty: An In-Depth Analysis of 3D Planning Prediction and Patient-Specific Instruments for Revision Surgery

In today’s medicine, 3D planning and PSI are not commonly used in revision TKA surgery and little is known about the accuracy and implementation of these techniques in revision TKA. Therefore, the question arises, what are the potential benefits of 3D planning and PSI in revision surgery? The goal of this thesis is to explore the potential...

Radiostereometric Analysis in Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty; An Analysis of Marker Placement

Background: Radiostereometric analysis (RSA) is a technique to assess early migration, which has a predictive value for early failure of unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA). To successfully analyze the RSA images it is important to have a sufficient amount of visiblemarkers with an acceptable three-dimensional distribution.<br/>Objective:...