1.Comparative Study on Clinical Outcomes of Posterior Endoscopic Cervical Foraminotomy under Local Anesthesia with Conscious Sedation and General Anesthesia
Jason K. LIM ; Marium RAZA ; Do H. LIM ; Samuel KIM ; Jeffrey M. BRETON ; David ZHAO ; Patrick KIM ; Mani N. NAIR ; Christoph P. HOFSTETTER ; Byeong Cheol RIM
Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society 2026;69(1):81-91
Objective:
: Posterior endoscopic cervical foraminotomy (PECF) is a minimally invasive surgical technique for treating cervical radiculopathy. Traditionally, PECF is performed under general anesthesia in the prone position, but concerns over anesthesia-related complications have led to the exploration of local anesthesia in the lateral decubitus position as an alternative. This study aims to compare the clinical outcomes, safety, and efficacy of PECF performed under local anesthesia in the lateral decubitus position versus general anesthesia in the prone position.
Methods:
: We conducted a retrospective analysis of 13 patients who underwent PECF under local anesthesia in the lateral decubitus position. The outcomes were compared with data from 357 patients across eight studies who underwent PECF under general anesthesia in the prone position. Outcomes measures included Visual analog scale (VAS) pain scores, Oswestry disability index (ODI), length of stay (LOS), minimally clinically important difference (MCID), and complications.
Results:
: Patients in the local anesthesia group demonstrated significant reductions in neck pain (VAS-N : 4.93±1.32 to 1.49±0.52, p<0.001) and arm pain (VAS-A : 8.69±0.75 to 1.85±1.46, p<0.001), achieving a mean pain reduction of 78.8%. These improvements were comparable to the general anesthesia group (VAS-N : 4.80 to 1.28; VAS-A : 6.71 to 1.23). Functional outcomes improved significantly in both groups, with ODI scores improving from 54.76% to 9.82% locally and from 39.92% to 9.62% in the general group. Although LOS was slightly longer for the local anesthesia group (5.85±3.20 vs. 4.81±2.17 days, p=0.18), post-procedure monitoring time was significantly shorter (3.2 vs. 7.4 hours, p<0.001). The local anesthesia group reported zero complications (0%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0–22.8%) compared to an 8.68% complication rate (95% CI, 5.8–11.6%) in the general anesthesia cohort (p=0.612).
Conclusion
: PECF under local anesthesia in the lateral decubitus position provides comparably effective pain relief and functional improvement comparable to general anesthesia, though the difference in complication rates was not statistically significant and requires larger studies for confirmation. This technique may be particularly advantageous for patients at higher risk for anesthesia-related complications. Further research is warranted to validate these findings in larger, prospective studies.
2.Clinical Targeted Next-Generation sequencing Panels for Detection of Somatic Variants in Gliomas
Hyemi SHIN ; Jason K. SA ; Joon Seol BAE ; Harim KOO ; Seonwhee JIN ; Hee Jin CHO ; Seung Won CHOI ; Jong Min KYOUNG ; Ja Yeon KIM ; Yun Jee SEO ; Je-Gun JOUNG ; Nayoung K. D. KIM ; Dae-Soon SON ; Jongsuk CHUNG ; Taeseob LEE ; Doo-Sik KONG ; Jung Won CHOI ; Ho Jun SEOL ; Jung-Il LEE ; Yeon-Lim SUH ; Woong-Yang PARK ; Do-Hyun NAM
Cancer Research and Treatment 2020;52(1):41-50
Purpose:
Targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) panels for solid tumors have been useful in clinical framework for accurate tumor diagnosis and identifying essential molecular aberrations. However, most cancer panels have been designed to address a wide spectrum of pan-cancer models, lacking integral prognostic markers that are highly specific to gliomas.
Materials and Methods:
To address such challenges, we have developed a glioma-specific NGS panel, termed “GliomaSCAN,” that is capable of capturing single nucleotide variations and insertion/deletion, copy number variation, and selected promoter mutations and structural variations that cover a subset of intron regions in 232 essential glioma-associated genes. We confirmed clinical concordance rate using pairwise comparison of the identified variants from whole exome sequencing (WES), immunohistochemical analysis, and fluorescence in situ hybridization.
Results:
Our panel demonstrated high sensitivity in detecting potential genomic variants that were present in the standard materials. To ensure the accuracy of our targeted sequencing panel, we compared our targeted panel to WES. The comparison results demonstrated a high correlation. Furthermore, we evaluated clinical utility of our panel in 46 glioma patients to assess the detection capacity of potential actionable mutations. Thirty-two patients harbored at least one recurrent somatic mutation in clinically actionable gene.
Conclusion
We have established a glioma-specific cancer panel. GliomaSCAN highly excelled in capturing somatic variations in terms of both sensitivity and specificity and provided potential clinical implication in facilitating genome-based clinical trials. Our results could provide conceptual advance towards improving the response of genomically guided molecularly targeted therapy in glioma patients.
5.Sports medicine.
Benedict TAN ; Jason K K CHIA ; Jit Kheng LIM
Annals of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore 2008;37(4):259-251

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