Med. Dominik Pförringer

Technische Universität München | TUM · Klinik und Poliklinik für Unfallchirurgie

Background: With the passing of the "Digital Care Act" by the German Bundestag at the end of 2019, it was made possible, among other things, for digital health applications to be reimbursed by statutory health insurance companies under certain conditions. The aim of this work is to identify digital health applications related to ear, nose, and thr...

Digitalization and digitization are becoming increasingly more important in medicine. Processes are being optimized and data are being digitally recorded, analyzed and archived. Although there is still a comparatively large need to catch up in Germany, we are on a solid transformation path. The establishment of the European Health Data Space (EHDS)...

Major burn injuries provoke a profound stress response marked by extreme hypermetabolism and impaired immune function. The physiological alterations to glucose, protein and lipid metabolism can be detected even years after the inciting burns injury and when untreated can lead to profound wasting, fatty liver, and even death. Therapeutic strategies...

Background: Health-related mobile applications (apps) are rapidly increasing in number. There is an urgent need for assessment tools and algorithms that allow the usability and content criteria of these applications to be objectively assessed. The aim of this work was to establish and validate a concept for orthopedic societies to rate health apps...

Optimal material resource planning is crucial to run safe and cost-efficient hospital services. In this article, we investigate a real problem in hospitals, motivated by an environmental and economically inefficient use of disposable, single-use, endoscopes. We develop a mathematical model and create a decision support tool to determine when reusab...

Prostate cancer represents one of the most common malignant tumors in male patients in Germany. The pathological reporting of radical prostatectomy specimens following a structured process constitutes an excellent prototype for the introduction of software-based standardized structured reporting in pathology. This can lead to reports of higher qual...

Following the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, several elective surgeries were cancelled, and rehabilitation units were closed. This has led to difficulties for patients seeking access to rehabilitation in order to achieve the best possible outcome. New applications with or without sensors were developed to address this need, but the outcome has not been ex...

Introduction Regional health care networks with interfaces between clinics, general practitioners and patients can act faster when utilizing digital measures. This manuscript describes the establishment of an online video consultation service in a clinic and its broad health care region to exemplify challenges and solutions for potential future app...

Background and objectives: Electromobility has become increasingly popular. In 2001, Segway personal transporters (Segway) were established for tourists, and e-scooters have been in use since their approval in 2019. The aim of this study was to analyze and compare the types of injuries directly related to the use of Segways and e-scooters, respecti...

Zusammenfassung Die proximale Femurfraktur ist eine Frakturentität mit ansteigender Prävalenz, ein Effekt, welcher durch die zunehmende Alterung der Allgemeinbevölkerung noch zusätzlich verstärkt werden wird. In der Summe stellt sie sowohl die Operateure als auch das deutsche Gesundheitssystem als Ganzes vor Herausforderungen. Zudem führt ein steti...

Vascular graft infections (VGI) are severe complications in prosthetic vascular surgery with an incidence ranging from 1 to 6%. In these cases, synthetic grafts are commonly used in combination with antimicrobial agents. Expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) is in clinical use as a synthetic graft material and shows promising results by influenc...

Background: Regional health care networks with interfaces between clinics, general practitioners and patients can act faster when utilizing digital measures. This manuscript describes the establishment of an online video consultation service in a clinic and its broad health care region to exemplify challenges and solutions for potential future appr...

Objective: Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) are rare and severe skin and mucosal reactions that are associated with high mortality. Despite the severity, an evidence-based treatment protocol for SJS/TEN is still lacking. Method: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, the PubMed database was searched using t...

Objective: Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) are rare and severe skin and mucosal reactions that are associated with high mortality. Despite the severity, an evidence-based treatment protocol for SJS/TEN is still lacking. Method: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, the PubMed database was searched using...

Background Foot and ankle injuries are among the most common lesions in traumatology, accounting for more than one in ten human fractures. The aim of this study was to investigate the demographic changes of patients with foot and ankle injuries, the temporal occurrence and the development over the years in an emergency department.Material and metho...

Background Measures such as restrictions on personal contact and going out were taken to reduce SARS-CoV‑2 infection numbers, ultimately resulting in the first lockdown. This was intended to create capacity in the healthcare system to manage the pandemic.Aim of the workTo analyze whether the number of work and commuting injuries decreased during th...

Obwohl sich die Digitalisierung im Gesundheitswesen seit Beginn der Corona-Pandemie beschleunigt hat, gibt es noch manche Defizite. An einer weiteren Entwicklung führt jedoch kein Weg vorbei, und es gibt auch schon manche Angebote, die erahnen lassen, was zukünftig möglich sein wird.

Background Changes in demographics and dynamics of our society are affecting the healthcare system, leading to an intensified “war for talents,” especially for surgical departments. Also with regard to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the present work analyzes the potential of digitalization for human resource management of surgical departments in ho...

Background The importance of emergency rooms (ERs) as everyday healthcare suppliers is growing. Due to increasing patient flows, hospitals are forced to raise physicians’ and caregivers’ headcount continuously to meet the new demand of patients seeing the ER as primary point of contact in non-emergency situations. Patients from various cultural and...

Introduction: Androgenic alopecia (AGA) occurs due to progressive miniaturization of the dermal papilla (DP). During this process the hair follicle loses nutrition over time and eventually dies, causing the hair to fall out. Recent evidence suggests that hypoxia-inducible factor-1a (HIF-1α) modulation may counteract hair loss. This study aims to e...

Background Climate change and increasing risks of extreme weather events affect human health and lead to changes in the emergency department (ED) admissions and the emergency medical services (EMS) operations. For a better allocation of resources in the healthcare system, it is essential to predict ED numbers based on environmental variables. This...

Background Since their approval in Germany in June 2019 e‑scooters have become increasingly more popular; however, with growing popularity and easy access for everybody the number of accidents has increased, sometimes even resulting in severe injuries.Objective The purpose of this study was to collect demographic data and analyze injury patterns of...

This article deals with the current state mid-2020 in the clinical and practical aspects from the perspective of orthopedics and trauma surgery. The risks, difficulties, potentials and options are discussed in detail. The following topics are specifically debated: infrastructure of telematics, apps and mobile health, online video consultation, elec...

IntroductionIn addition to the advantages for patients and physicians, the progression of digitalization will also have economic implications for healthcare systems in toto worldwide. The integration of digital innovations enables healthcare institutions to transform their current activities and processes and to create a new form of patient care.Im...

Die Digitalisierung des Gesundheitswesens ist global unaufhaltsam ebenso wie omnipräsent. In Deutschland existiert hierzu eine Vielzahl an Initiativen, Institutionen und eine breite Basis an Innovatoren. Der Status quo ist begrüßenswert, jedoch bedarf es der weiteren Koordination und Kommunikation, um zielführend eine Strategie für die Zukunft des...

New communication technologies allow patients to communicate with their physicians from anywhere using computer or smartphone. Adding video to the mere phone call optimizes the personal contact between patient and physicians regardless of distance. Legal and reimbursements requirements must be taken into account, especially only certified software...

Background: Fractures of the proximal femur constitute daily work in orthopedic trauma surgery. With the continuous increase of obesity in the general population, surgeons face several known technical challenges. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of high body mass index (BMI) in patients with proximal femur fractures with in...

Backgropund and Aim Postoperative thrombocytopenia after surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) or transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and aggravating causes were the aim of this retrospective study. Methods Data of all patients treated with SAVR (n = 1068) and TAVR (n = 816) due to severe aortic valve stenosis was collected at our cen...

Background: Aim of the present study is the evaluation of ultrasound as a physical method for virus inactivation in human plasma products prior to transfusion. Our study is focused on achieving a high level of virus inactivation simultaneously leaving blood products unaltered, measured by the level of degradation of coagulation factors, especially...

This article reports the case of an 81-year-old male patient under treatment with oral anticoagulation who suffered delayed compartment syndrome of the upper arm from arterial capillary hemorrhage after shovelling snow. The diagnosis was made 48 h after the initial symptoms in the emergency surgical department of the Klinikum rechts der Isar (Münch...

Hair is a defining feature of mammals and has critical functions, including protection, production of sebum, apocrine sweat and pheromones, social and sexual interactions, thermoregulation, and provision of stem cells for skin homeostasis, regeneration, and repair. The hair follicle (HF) is considered a "mini-organ," consisting of intricate and wel...

Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) ist ein sehr relevantes Thema für die Medizin der Zukunft. Dieser Artikel beleuchtet das Thema KI im Kontext der Orthopädie und Unfallchirurgie. Im Schwerpunkt werden KI-Potenziale bei der Analyse von Symptomen, radiologischen Bildern, klinischen Datensätzen, der Verwendung in Klinik und im Operationssaal sowie für die A...

Calcium sulfate (CS) is employed as a bone substitute in a variety of clinical constellations and can additionally be antibiotically impregnated. These loaded bone substitutes can be applied in orthopedic and trauma surgery for prevention or treatment of bone infections. Its fast biodegradation reveals some concerns and limits the use. Addition of...

Background: The administrative work of physicians, particularly documentation effort, consumes considerable time in surgical emergency departments. At the same time, the latter face an ever-growing influx of patients, leading to increasing waiting and flow times and thus patient dissatisfaction as well as overload of physicians and nurses. The dep...

Background: Intensive care unit (ICU) capacity is a scant and precious resource in hospitals. Therefore, an optimal occupancy rate as well as detailed occupation planning is of great importance. Most literature deals with admission to the ICU, while only few discuss discharge from the ICU. Specifically, a delay of transfer from the ICU can cause a...

Wird die Digitalisierung in der Medizin die klare und einfache Antwort auf all unsere Herausforderungen und Probleme im modernen Gesundheitswesen sein? Wir stehen heutzutage älteren Patienten mit mehr Komorbiditäten gegenüber, die eine komplexere Diagnostik und Therapie in einem Umfeld mit zunehmendem bürokratischem und rechtlichem Aufwand erforder...

Background In the management of trauma patients in the resuscitation room many time-pressured and critical decisions must continuously be made in complex situations. Even experienced teams frequently make errors in this context. Computer-assisted decision-making systems can predict critical situations based on patient data continuously acquired onl...

Objectives Globalization and migration are increasing the demand for reports in different languages. We aimed to examine if structured reports created by non-German-speaking radiologists with multilingual templates show significant differences in quality to structured reports and free-text reports by German native speakers. Methods We used structu...

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Durch den Verlust der natürlichen Hautbarrierefunktion und folglich reduzierter Immunkompetenz infolge eines Plasmaverlustes sowie zahlreichen intensivmedizinischen Interventionen sind Verbrennungspatienten besonders gefährdet für Infektionen. Studiendesign Systematische Übersichtsarbeit Methoden In einer systematischen...

Introduction: Adipose-derived stromal cells (ASCs) are a promising resource for wound healing and tissue regeneration because of their multipotent properties and cytokine secretion. ASCs are typically isolated from the subcutaneous fat compartment, but can also be obtained from visceral adipose tissue. The data on their equivalence diverges. The p...

Wnt signaling plays a central regulatory role across a remarkably diverse range of functions during embryonic development, including those involved in the formation of bone and cartilage. Wnt signaling continues to play a critical role in adult osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells. Disruptions in this highly-conserved and complex sy...

Background The primary goal of this study was to analyse the anatomic configuration of the acromio-clavicular joint in a healthy population to be able to develop a classification in a second step. On the basis of the primary findings a secondary goal was to find potential clinical indications in refer to AC-joint dislocation and lateral clavicle fr...

Background Previous studies were able to show that hazardous alcohol and substance abuse among physicians is not rare. Currently no recent data to detect risk groups are available either on the prevalence of hazardous drinking disorders and risky health behaviour among physicians or on influencing factors (age, gender, role, institution, specializa...

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Die Versorgung von komplexen Patienten mit chronischen Wunden wie dem Dekubitus sacralis ist speziell bei intensiv pflegeaufwändigen Patienten, die an einer Vielzahl von chronischen Erkrankungen leiden, nicht immer kostendeckend. Wir analysieren Erlöse, Kosten und Komplikationen, um wesentliche Faktoren der Kostenbildung...

Background: Healthcare IT (HIT) increasingly gains public attention and clinical daily relevance. A growing number of patients and physicians increasingly relies on IT services to monitor and support well-being and recovery both in their private and professional environment. This is assumed to develop rapidly in the upcoming years. Objective: Th...

Background: To analyse structured and free text reports of shoulder X-ray examinations evaluating the quality of reports and potential contributions to clinical decision-making. Methods: We acquired both standard free text and structured reports of 31 patients with a painful shoulder without history of previous trauma who received X-ray exams. A...

Background: The city of Munich uses web-based information system IVENA to promote exchange of information regarding hospital offerings and closures between the integrated dispatch center and hospitals to support coordination of the emergency medical services. Hospital crowding resulting in closures and thus prolonged transportation time poses a ma...

Calcium sulfate (CS) formulations are frequently implanted as antibiotically impregnated bone substitutes in orthopedic and trauma surgery to prevent or treat bone infections. Calcium ions have been discussed as candidates to accelerate blood coagulation. The goal of this study is to evaluate substance-specific influences of CS formulations on bloo...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0190912.].

Calcium sulfate (CS) can be used as an antibiotically impregnated bone substitute in a variety of clinical constellations. Antibiotically loaded bone substitutes find specific application in orthopedic and trauma surgery to prevent or treat bone infections especially in relation to open bone defects. However, its use as a structural bone graft reve...

Background Surgical sutures can promote migration of bacteria and thus start infections. Antiseptic coating of sutures may inhibit proliferation of adhered bacteria and avoid such complications. Objectives This study investigated the inhibition of viable adhering bacteria on novel antimicrobially coated surgical sutures using chlorhexidine or octe...

Background: Management of distal humeral fractures remains to be one of the most challenging aspects in trauma surgery. Low profile plating systems with variable angle screw fixation represent a crucial advancement to the established angular stable locking plates with considerable attention in current research. The aim of the prospective randomize...

Introduction: For comminuted and displaced fractures of the radial head open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) is recommended nowadays as the treatment of choice. Due to the development of locking plates the possibilities of ORIF in complex fracture types were extended. The purpose of this retrospective survey therefore was to review the prel...

Kevin und Jaqueline, elf und zwölf Jahre alt, helfen gerne bei der Gartenarbeit. Eines Tages ziehen sie mit dem Elektrorasenmäher los. Plötzlich knarzt dieser, heult kurz auf, dann steht er still. Als Jaqueline nachschaut, was los ist und mit der Hand unter den Rasenmäher greift, fällt ein Steinchen aus dem Messer. Prompt legt der Mäher wieder los...

Background Treatment of clavicular non- and malunion is still challenging. Current surgical procedures often result in frustrating functional outcome along with high-grade subjective impairment and increased rates of revision surgery. However, the combination of biological augmentation with vital bone graft and a biomechanically sufficient fixation...

Objectives To evaluate the effect of structured reports (SRs) in comparison to non-structured narrative free text (NRs) shoulder MRI reports and potential effects of both types of reporting on completeness, readability, linguistic quality and referring surgeons’ satisfaction. Methods Thirty patients after trauma or with suspected degenerative chang...

See ECR 2017 - Book of abstracts; Reference: Insights Imaging (2017) 8(Suppl 1): 1. doi:10.1007/s13244-017-0546-5

Background: Increasing costs of material resources challenge hospitals to stay profitable. Particularly in anesthesia departments and intensive care units, bronchoscopes are used for various indications. Inefficient management of single- and multiple-use systems can influence the hospitals' material costs substantially. Using mathematical modeling...

Background: Compromised bone stock and heavily impaired structural integrity after multiple endoprosthetic revision surgeries can lead to a comparable condition as encountered in musculoskeletal tumor surgery. Total femoral replacement (TFR) can restore femoral integrity and allow patients to resume ambulation. Even though several authors reported...

Background The aim of this study was to evaluate potential benefits of a new diagnostic software prototype (Trauma Viewer, TV) automatically reformatting computed tomography (CT) data on diagnostic speed and quality, compared to CT-image data evaluation using a conventional CT console. Methods Multiple trauma CT data sets were analysed by one exper...

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate potential benefits of a new diagnostic software prototype (Trauma Viewer, TV) automatically reformatting computed tomography (CT) data on diagnostic speed and quality, compared to CT-image data evaluation using a conventional CT console. Methods: Multiple trauma CT data sets were analysed by one exp...

Background: Trauma surgery is a discipline in which the training phase for specialization requires a technical and time-intensive learning curve, including the repetitive training of manual skills. This results in prolonged operation times and thus elevated costs. Objectives: The present study retrospectively examines operations in trauma surger...

Background Although self-assessment questionnaires for the wrist joint are numerous, most validation studies focus on a specific pathology and patient collectives. In addition the available questionnaires focus on subjective parameters such as pain, usual and specific activities but the range of motion (ROM) as an essential objective parameter in w...

Substitution of bones is a well-established, necessary procedure to treat bone defects in trauma and orthopedic surgeries. For prevention or treatment of perioperative infection the implantation of resorbable bone substitute materials carrying antibiotics is a necessary treatment. In this study, we investigated the newly formulated calcium based re...