Michael Falola

• MD, MPH
• University of Alabama at Birmingham

Object: Traumatic aneurysms occur in 10% of extracranial blunt traumatic cerebrovascular injuries (TCVI). The clinical consequences and optimal management of traumatic aneurysms are poorly understood. Methods: A prospective study of TCVI at a Level I trauma center identified 7 patients with 19 extracranial traumatic carotid artery or vertebral a...

Patients with traumatic extracranial cerebrovascular injury (TCVI) comprise about 1% of all blunt trauma admissions according to numerous single-center studies. However, previous studies have used aggressive screening protocols; these studies may not reflect common practice and the overall incidence of TCVI. The annual incidence of the diagnosis of...

Anthrax and its etiologic agent remain a biological threat. Anthrax vaccine is highly effective, but vaccine-induced IgG antibody responses vary widely following required doses of vaccinations. Such variation can be related to genetic factors, especially genomic copy number variants (CNVs) that are known to be enriched among genes with immunologic...

Background: Temporary artery occlusion (TAO) during intracranial aneurysm surgery is a key element in facilitating aneurysm dissection and clipping. Despite its significance, knowledge of its effects on long-term clinical outcome in patients undergoing elective clipping for unruptured aneurysms is limited. This study evaluated the safety of this t...

Background: Temporary artery occlusion (TAO) during intracranial aneurysm surgery is an integral element in facilitating aneurysm dissection and clipping. Despite its significance, knowledge of effects of TAO on long-term clinical outcome is limited. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of TAO in patients with subarachnoid hemorrha...

Object: Children experiencing frequent shunt failure consume medical resources and represent a disproportionate level of morbidity in hydrocephalus care. While biological causes of frequent shunt failure may exist, this study analyzed demographic and socioeconomic patient characteristics associated with frequent shunt failure. Methods: A survey...

Michael FalolaDepartment of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USAI read with interest the article "Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as a cardiovascular risk factor. Results of a case-control study (CONSISTE study)" by de Lucas-Ramos et al.1 In my opinion, the study did not use case-control design, despite its t...

Object: The Internet and social media are powerful disseminators of medical information, providing new portals for patient care. The authors of this study evaluated current technology hardware, Internet, and social media use and their socioeconomic relationships among caregivers of children with hydrocephalus. Methods: A written survey was compl...

Object: This study was undertaken to assess the reliability of observations of postoperative photographs in assigning House-Brackmann scores as outcome measures for patients following resection of vestibular schwannomas. Methods: Forty pictures of differing facial expressions typically elicited from patients for assigning House-Brackmann scores...