Given the aging population and increasing prevalence of degenerative diseases of the spine, neurosurgeons need to perform more lumbar fusions with pedicle screw fixations. As these interventions are currently carried out percutaneously, surgeons are dependent on intraoperative imaging to replace the anatomical landmarks found in open procedures. In our institution, we recently acquired a neuronavigation system based on intraoperative 3D fluoroscopy.

Transient elastography (TE), or Fibroscan®, has been validated for the diagnosis and staging of liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C, but there is no clear consensus on the optimal TE cut-off values in alcoholic liver disease (ALD). The objectives of the study were: (a) to evaluate the cut-off values reported in the literature and determine new ones for the diagnosis of fibrosis in alcoholic patients; (b) to investigate the impact of 2 weeks of abstinence on TE results; (c) to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of TE for detecting clinically significant portal hypertension; (d) to evaluate the accuracy of non-invasive blood tests (AST-Platelet Ratio Index [APRI], Forns index, Fibrosis-4 [FIB-4]); (e) to study the potential histological (steatosis, alcoholic hepatitis, perisinusoidal fibrosis) and biochemical (transaminases and cholestasis) confounding factors leading to misclassification by TE.

In the first months following diagnosis, type 1 diabetes patients frequently experience a transient period of partial remission during which glycemic control can be achieved easily with reduced, or even suspended, insulin requirements. Over the past years, different criteria have been used in the literature to define this period, rendering it sometimes difficult to compare study results. In 2009, Mortensen et al. [1] proposed a new definition of the remission phase: the IDAA1C (Insulin Dose-Adjusted A1C = HbA1C + 4 x insulin doses/day/kg), with an IDAA1C ≤9 indicating that the patient is in remission phase. Though this formula is currently the most widely used in the literature, some authors criticize that it integrates the «insulin doses» parameter, as it may be influenced by several confounding factors.

Over the last decades, the use of biomarkers in emergency medicine has considerably increased. While the P S100β protein has been considered as a neurological prognostic factor following cardiac arrest or stroke occurrence, it is principally in the minor head trauma management that the P S100β seems to be of interest. Studies have highlighted its usefulness for excluding neurological lesions, without performing brain computed tomography (CT), and this, with a good sensitivity close to 100% (CI: 50 to 100%). The P S100β analysis could be particularly helpful for clinicians in cases where the patient's neurological examination proves unreliable.