The results reflected positively on the patients' awake and outpatient surgery experience, but there were some areas that require improvement, specifically perioperative pain control and postoperative care. These insights on patients' perspectives can lead to better delivery of care, and ultimately, improved health outcomes.

The acetyltransferase Tip60/Kat5 acetylates both histone and non-histone proteins, and is involved in a variety of biological processes. By acetylating p53, Tip60 controls p53-dependent transcriptional activity and so is implicated as a tumor suppressor. However, many breast cancers with low Tip60 also show p53 mutation, implying that Tip60 has a tumor suppressor function independent of its acetylation of p53. Here, we show in a p53-null mouse model of sporadic invasive breast adenocarcinoma that heterozygosity for Tip60 deletion promotes mammary tumorigenesis. Low Tip60 reduces DNA repair in normal and tumor mammary epithelial cells, both under resting conditions and following genotoxic stress. We demonstrate that Tip60 controls homologous recombination (HR)-directed DNA repair, and that Tip60 levels correlate inversely with a gene expression signature associated with defective HR-directed DNA repair. In human breast cancer data sets, Tip60 mRNA is downregulated, with low Tip60 levels correlating with p53 mutations in basal-like breast cancers. Our findings indicate that Tip60 is a novel breast tumor suppressor gene whose loss results in genomic instability leading to cancer formation.

Traumatic neuroma in continuity (NIC) results in profound neurological deficits, and its management poses the most challenging problem to peripheral nerve surgeons today. The absence of a clinically relevant experimental model continues to handicap our ability to investigate ways of better diagnosis and treatment for these disabling injuries. Various injury techniques were tested on Lewis rat sciatic nerves. Optimal experimental injuries that consistently resulted in NIC combined both intense focal compression and traction forces. Nerves were harvested at 0, 5, 13, 21, and 65 days for histological examination. Skilled locomotion and ground reaction force (GRF) analysis were performed up to 9 weeks on the experimental (n=6) and crush-control injuries (n=5). Focal widening, disruption of endoneurium and perineurium with aberrant intra- and extrafascicular axonal regeneration and progressive fibrosis was consistently demonstrated in 14 of 14 nerves with refined experimental injuries. At 8 weeks, experimental animals displayed a significantly greater slip ratio in both skilled locomotor assessments, compared to nerve crush animals (p<0.01). GRFs of the crush- injured animals showed earlier improvement compared to the experimental animals, whose overall GRF patterns failed to recover as well as the crush group. We have demonstrated histological features and poor functional recovery consistent with NIC formation in a rat model. The injury mechanism employed combines traction and compression forces akin to the physical forces at play in clinical nerve injuries. This model may serve as a tool to help diagnose this injury earlier and to develop intervention strategies to improve patient outcomes.

The median nerve in the sheep forelimb is a reproducible and reliable model for assessing regeneration through long peripheral nerve grafts.