Surgery

Balloon angioplasty is as effective as bypass surgery in clearing blocked arteries in patients who are otherwise healthy, but surgery is better for those who are diabetic, according to the largest study ever to compare the two techniques. Both are used to clear arteries in patients with severe coronary artery disease. The multicenter team studied 914 patients who received a bypass and 915 who underwent angioplasty.

Cartilage does not naturally regenerate in the body, which is bad news for anyone who damages a joint. Even small tears tend to worsen over time, causing extreme pain and reducing mobility. Once arthritis sets in, only a total joint replacement can alleviate the problem. A new procedure developed by Swedish researchers clones cartilage cells, which are introduced into the damaged area and regenerate healthy tissue. Here's how it works in repairing a damaged knee joint.

Doctors had warned 7-year-old Chelsey Thomas not to even attempt a smirk, for fear of injuring a muscle transplanted from her thigh to her left cheek. But seven years is a long time to wait for a smile. So each morning, for weeks, Chelsey got up, walked to the bathroom, brushed her teeth and looked in the mirror. Each morning, nothing.

Concerned that the punishment may have been too light, Health Services Director Mark Finucane said Thursday that he has begun an investigation into why a County-USC Medical Center surgeon was suspended for only 28 days after allowing a "scrub technician" to operate on a patient. Finucane also said he has begun looking into whether County-USC administrators notified the California Medical Board of the incident as required by law. On Wednesday, Los Angeles City Atty. James K.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office filed misdemeanor criminal charges Wednesday against County-USC Medical Center and one of its former doctors, alleging that the surgeon left an operating room and allowed a "scrub technician" to perform sterilization surgery on a female patient. The patient, a 23-year-old woman from Lakewood, was anesthetized last March when Dr.

Four surgical teams labored for more than two hours Tuesday morning at a San Fernando Valley hospital to remove burned skin from the back and legs of a 17-year-old Newbury Park youth struck by high-voltage electricity while practicing a rock-climbing technique off a power company tower. Michael Halsell received third-degree burns over 85% of his body on March 11 when he was struck by as much as 220,000 volts, setting him and his clothes afire.

The New York State Health Department announced that it fined Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center $12,000 for operating on the wrong side of a patient's brain. Half of the fine was suspended on the condition that the leading cancer treatment facility not violate state standards in the next year. In May 1995, Dr. Ehud Arbit operated on the wrong side of the brain of Rajeswari Ayyappan, the mother of Indian movie star Sridevi Ayyappan. The doctor wrongly used the X-ray of an Indian man.

Doctors can literally hear the blood flowing in 7-year-old Chelsey Thomas' left cheek. Which is good: It means Chelsey is that much closer to smiling for the first time. Born with a rare neurological disorder called Moebius syndrome that causes partial facial paralysis, Chelsey, of Palmdale, underwent the first of a two-part surgery at Kaiser Permanente's Woodland Hills Medical Center a little more than a month ago. She is recovering well, her mother reports.

Jesse Holt doesn't look like "The Kidney Kid," a pathfinder in the field of medicine. Sleepy-eyed, clutching his favorite blanket, he looks like a very normal 1-year-old on the verge of a very deep nap. But today, Jesse is due to undergo a bold new kind of kidney-removal procedure, one far less invasive than any kidney procedure previously known. "He has no clue," said his father, Dennis, 33, a deckhand aboard the glass-bottomed submarines that cruise around Santa Catalina Island.

Controversial lung surgeries that draw hundreds of desperate emphysema sufferers each year to Orange County specialists no longer will be covered by Medicare, until the federal government is satisfied the procedures are safe and effective. The announcement has forced at least two hospitals in the county with growing surgical programs for emphysema patients to notify scores of seriously ill people across the country that their scheduled operations must be put off indefinitely.