godfather of surgery

Chapter 1032 Will It Rust?

On the second day after the operation, Brian's drainage tube and urinary catheter were removed, and he began to get out of bed and move around with a waist belt. He was very satisfied with the results of the operation.

Some researchers in the laboratory often come to chat with Brian when they are free. Of course, the topic of their chats is still academic. Anyway, they can get into academic topics with just a few words. Especially Lu Xiaolu is a rare genius, and his understanding is far beyond that of ordinary people. After communicating with Brian, a master who stands at the forefront of academics, he has benefited a lot and solved many problems.

In the research on tumors, Yang Ping's current idea is to use the M13 phage as a vector to carry the K factor that can kill tumor cells into the human body, and then selectively bind to the tumor cells and kill them. This idea is very good, but the specific operation is full of difficulties.

One challenge is to embed the K factor into the M13 phage, and another challenge is to make this complex selectively affinity for tumor cells.

The system space can only provide time, space and materials, but cannot provide ideas for solving problems, so Yang Ping has to think about how to solve the problem himself. Yang Ping proposed an idea, and now many specific technologies are needed to realize this idea.

In the field of immunology, especially tumor immunology, Brian can be said to be the most advanced in the world, and some of his specific experimental methods can be used as reference.

The sea is vast because it can accommodate all rivers. This is the attitude towards academic research.

The electronic reading screen shows Brian's postoperative MRI photos. Although the metal implants interfere with the images, the details of the surgical area can still be seen clearly. The huge prolapsed disc nucleus pulposus has been removed, and the compression of the nerves has naturally been relieved. The lumbar spondylolisthesis has been reset, and the L4 and L5 vertebrae are firmly fixed by pedicle screws. In the future, the L4 and L5 vertebrae will fuse together, and the two fractures will become one bone, and this segment will gain lasting stability. Of course, at this stage, the patient also loses his mobility, but the lumbar vertebra has five segments, and losing the mobility of one segment will not cause much loss of the mobility of the entire lumbar spine. It has almost no effect on the elderly, but it still has an impact on young people, who have higher requirements for waist mobility.

"Professor, if there is no lumbar instability and it is just a simple lumbar herniation, should we choose a combination of disc removal + intervertebral bone fusion + pedicle screw fixation?"

"Yes, nowadays many young and middle-aged people only have lumbar disc herniation. Can they just do disc removal?"

The students surrounding them raised their doubts.

"If the patient is a young or middle-aged person and there is no lumbar segmental instability, then this combination procedure cannot be chosen. Only lumbar disc removal should be performed. Now a large number of samples show that the effect of lumbar disc removal alone is very good." Yang Ping explained to everyone.

Brian was wearing a waist belt and had a walker next to him. In fact, he could walk by himself, but he asked his companion to follow him holding the walker. If he got tired, he could use the walker's handrails to rest for a while.

Brian didn't know how to read an MRI, but Mannstein had shown him several times that he understood a little bit. He couldn't see anything else, but at least he could see two things. One was that the huge nucleus pulposus was a black mass on the MRI, but now it was gone. The other was that the front and back edges of the two vertebrae were originally offset, but now they were on the same line, and it was obvious that they had returned to their correct position.

Curiosity made Brian have some wild thoughts. In fact, the saying "different fields have different worlds" is more prominent in English-speaking countries than in China. In the Chinese world, as long as you know how to read, you can understand some books on other majors. At most, you may not understand the meaning of some professional terms, but you can still understand the basic content of the expression.

But in the English-speaking world, as long as you jump to a major that you have never been exposed to, even a professor as great as Brian will not understand a thing. This kind of incomprehension is really incomprehensible, not at all, and all you see are letters.

This is like beef, dog meat, and pork. In Chinese, even if you know them, at least you know that they are meat, and they are animal meat. In the English world, you have no idea what they are. So it is not surprising that many high-level intellectuals in the English world do not know how to say a cuboid, and do not know what a cuboid is when they see the word for it. "If I bend down, will this metal screw break inside my body?" Brian was worried about this.

Yang Ping told him: "It is possible, but the possibility is very small."

"What if it breaks inside?" Academics like to get to the bottom of things.

"The function of these metal fixators is temporary fixation, that is, before the two vertebrae grow together, the stress is shared by the metal internal fixator. Once the vertebrae grow together, its function is completed. Therefore, this issue can be divided into two situations. If the screw breaks after the vertebrae are fused, the screw can be taken out. If the vertebrae have not yet fused, then you have to do another surgery to replace the broken internal fixator with a new one and re-fix it." Yang Ping satisfied his curiosity.

"What if the screw breaks inside the vertebra, like it's buried inside, how do you get it out?"

It seems that Brian has studied this issue as a serious academic question.

It will also allow everyone to see how a Nobel Prize winner thinks about problems, and at the same time let everyone know that no professor is an authority. They are all human beings and must have their own cognitive limitations. Real scientific researchers do not see authority and must have a sense of questioning and the ability to question.

Yang Ping pointed at the internal fixation on the screen with the eraser of his pencil: "If it is broken inside the vertebra, there is no need to remove it. Just leave it there. But if you want to take it out, it is not impossible. It is just a little troublesome. It is not necessary."

"If metals stay in the body for a long time, won't the released metal ions enter the blood? And then spread around the human body? Won't it affect physical health?"

The more Brian asked, the more curious he became. He was already immersed in this thought.

Yang Ping told him slowly: "The question you asked is very meaningful. This is also the biggest potential risk of metal-on-metal artificial hip joints. A large amount of metal ions enter the human blood, which has unknown potential risks, such as cancer. But this exists in metal-on-metal artificial hip joints, because the friction between metals will cause a large amount of metal debris to fall off and a large amount of metal ions to enter the blood. But the broken screws in the vertebrae you just mentioned do not exist, because the metal left in the vertebrae has no friction and is surrounded by bone. It can be considered as an inactive piece of metal. There is no large amount of metal ions entering the blood, so it can stay in the body for life."

Brian seemed to be thinking about something, not quite understanding it.

This was all common sense to a spine surgeon, but to Brian, it was a major discovery.

This is not surprising, because this knowledge is in his blind spot. No matter how he thinks, he lacks the corresponding content to think about. Without strong content to support him, his thinking will appear pale and powerless.

"Will it rust? Or will it react chemically with the ions in the surrounding bone tissue? If it does, can it be controlled?"

Brian stroked his chin and asked the question seriously.