Source says Wes Welker tears ACL, MCL

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Patriots enter playoffs without Welker

ESPNBoston.com's Mike Reiss on Wes Welker's injury against the Texans Tags: New England Patriots

Patriots enter playoffs without Welker

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HOUSTON -- Initial tests show that New England Patriots receiver Wes Welker tore both the anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament in his left knee in Sunday's loss to the Houston Texans, but he is scheduled to undergo more testing Monday, a source close to the situation told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.

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AP Photo/Dave EinselWes Welker is carted into the locker room after hurting his left knee.

The injury will presumably end Welker's season just as the Patriots' prepare for next Sunday's AFC wild-card game against the Baltimore Ravens.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick indicated Monday that he had no update on Welker, other than to confirm that the injured wide receiver was scheduled to undergo tests Monday morning.

"I felt badly for him," said Belichick. "He had a great year. It's unfortunate to see any player have an injury. Wes is a great competitor and I'm sure that he'll do whatever it is -- he'll work hard as he always does to bounce back."

Welker was injured in the first quarter when he tried to plant his left foot after making a catch. He was helped to the sideline by members of the Patriots' medical staff, then buried his head in a towel while sitting on the bench. Welker was later carted to the locker room.

"You can't replace him, there's no doubt about that," Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said Monday on WEEI radio. "There's nobody that can substitute in for Wes and think that they're going to be Wes. He is everything you ask for.

"We've got to move on and we've got to go out there and play and everyone I think in different areas has to pick it up. I have to play better, Julian [Edelman] has to play better, Randy [Moss] has to play better, the offensive line, running backs, tight ends, we all have to do more. I think that's the commitment we have to make to one another."

Cornerback Shawn Springs said the likely loss of Welker hurts.

"It's no secret around the whole NFL how important Wes is to us," Springs said. "My prayers are with him, because I know Wes is one of those guys who wants to be out there all the time. We are going to miss him."

Welker caught a pass from Brady on New England's first possession and his knee appeared to buckle as he turned upfield. When Welker went down, a nearby player immediately called for medical help. Brady and receiver Randy Moss kneeled over Welker, and Belichick also walked out from the sideline to check on Welker.

"You're heartbroken for Wes because he's so important to our team, he's probably the heart and soul of our team," Springs said.

The Patriots locker room was somber after the loss in Houston and Brady, who has been as accessible as ever this season, was presumably so frustrated at the turn of events that he declined to answer questions from reporters. A chair was placed in his empty locker and he was long gone by the time reporters entered the room after a lengthy delay.

Welker finished the season with a franchise record 123 catches (despite missing two games), 1,348 yards and four touchdowns.

"We've been going through that all year -- people up, people down," linebacker Adalius Thomas said of the playoff-bound Patriots. "Will we miss [Welker]? Yes we will. But the guys behind him have to step up and make plays."

Rookie receiver Julian Edelman, who projects to take on the bulk of Welker's responsibilities in the playoffs, played well Sunday after Welker was hurt. He set career highs with 10 catches and 103 yards receiving.

"I'm going to have to do a lot of studying and prepare like I have prepared all year," Edelman said. "All I can do is work hard and take the coaching that we have had and go with it."

Edelman, a seventh-round draft choice out of Kent State, has been one of the Patriots' surprise performers this season. He previously filled in for Welker in the second and third weeks of the season, and plays with a similar style.

In 10 games prior to Sunday, he had totaled 27 receptions for 256 yards. Edelman's numbers spiked against the Texans, and the Patriots will need more of the same in the playoffs.

"He's not a rookie any more," Springs said. "He needs to be ready to step up."

Information from ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter, ESPNBoston.com's Mike Reiss and The Associated Press was used in this report.

Robotic Surgeons Take Over at a Hospital Near YouPo

When steady hands are not precise enough, surgeons rely on sophisticated assistants.

The tool-wielding wrists of the da Vinci can rotate 540 degrees and have seven degrees of freedom, making the tools of the mechanical surgeon more dexterous than instruments held in human fingers.

By Amber Angelle

Illustration by Remie Geoffroi

Popular Mechanics - Published in the October 2009 issue.

Once considered oddities, multiarmed tools are becoming mainstays of hospital operating rooms. The industry trailblazer in the human–robot medical team is the da Vinci HD Surgical System, a multiarmed assistant that is directly controlled by a surgeon who sits at a nearby console. The system, made by Intuitive Surgical of Sunnyvale, Calif., has been steadily adopted by hospitals performing urology, gynecology and cardiology operations since the HD’s introduction in 2006. A new version of the da Vinci includes a powerful high-definition camera, a fourth arm for complex procedures, and dual control stations used for teaching new surgeons or to allow two doctors to collaborate during surgery.

Jim Hu, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, has removed more than 600 cancerous prostates with the da Vinci. He says that robotic assistance allows him to overcome the limitations of human doctors, allowing smaller incisions and less blood loss. The system even auto-corrects for any shaking as the doctor manipulates the tools from the console. But could the assistant one day operate without a doctor’s guidance? “Unless they develop artificial intelligence that can recognize variations in human anatomy, physicians will always be needed,” Hu says. “But who knows? If you had told me when I was in medical school in the ’90s that I would be using a robot to make incisions one day, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Examples of instruments:

New transplant hope as lung is 'repaired' and given to patient

By Jo Macfarlane

Surgeons have for the first time repaired an injured donor lung and transplanted it into a patient.

The lung did not meet strict quality standards and would normally have been discarded. But, using a new technique, doctors kept it ‘alive’ and repaired it with a combination of drugs and stem cells.

Lungs are usually removed from patients who die of brain injuries. But because the brain releases inflammatory enzymes when it shuts down, only about 15 per cent are viable for transplant.

X-Ray: Doctors have for the first time repaired an injured donor lung and transplanted it into a patient

These healthy organs are then cooled and are usable for about six to eight hours.

Under the new procedure, the lungs are transferred to a protective chamber and connected to ventilators and filters, which allow an oxygen-carrying solution to flow through them.

The temperature of the lungs is increased over 30 minutes until it reaches 37C (99F), at which point they can be preserved for between 12 and 18 hours, allowing doctors to assess the quality of the organ and treat it accordingly.

The lungs also partially use their own regenerative powers to heal in the same way they would inside the body.

The system was developed in Toronto, Canada. Lead researcher Shaf Keshavjee said: ‘This will be a significant improvement in the utilisation, and quality of organs.

'It has applications for all organs, and transplantation will become more like blood banks, with organs tested and then stored.’

The technique has been successfully used in four transplants.

Infertile woman to give birth after her twin sister donates an ovary in world first

By Neil Sears

Pioneer: Dr Sherman Silber carried out the procedure

An infertile woman is about to become the first to give birth following a full ovary transplant.

The 38-year-old Londoner was declared sterile at 15 and went through the menopause while still a teenager.

But in a revolutionary procedure she received a new ovary transplanted from her identical twin sister and, after getting pregnant, she is due to give birth this week.

She became pregnant, and is due to give birth this week.

The dramatic development gives new hope of motherhood to hundreds of thousands of women desperate for a baby.

Those who could ultimately benefit include the 100,000 British women who have gone through an early menopause, as well as those whose fertility is impaired by cancer treatment - as it could now be possible to freeze healthy ovaries for use later in life.

The doctor who carried out the transplant, Dr Sherman Silber, has for some years been specialising in transplants between identical twins, because there is a very low risk of organs being rejected.

Ovary transplants from non-identical twins would have to be accompanied by heavy doses of immune system-suppressant drugs to ensure the organs are not rejected, meaning pregnancy would be less likely.

But those women who manage to freeze their own ovaries in advance would have no rejection problems.

And Dr Silber has also discovered that identical twins are in fact five times more likely than the rest of the female population to suffer ovary damage, making his pioneering new procedure particularly relevant to them.

For infertile women, receiving a new ovary has many benefits not provided by IVF treatment, as the working organ produces useful hormones.

The London woman involved in the case had stopped having periods 22 years before her transplant - but her twin had given birth twice.

She agreed to provide one of her ovaries for the transplant, which was conducted by microsurgery expert Dr Silber at the Infertility Center of St Louis in Missouri, America, last year.

In a difficult procedure, he used keyhole surgery to remove the walnut-sized ovary from the donor before implanting it in her sister. He had to reconnect minuscule blood vessels just a third of a millimetre across to ensure the organ would survive.

Many benefits: In addition to pregnancy, ovary transplant patients benefit from the hormones produced by the new organ

Within three months the recipient began to ovulate normally, and after five months she had hormone levels the same as her sister. As a result of the increased hormone production, the osteoporosis she had been suffering improved.

And around a year after the transplant, the woman found she was pregnant.

Dr Silber, who is to discuss the operation at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine today, said the operation was 'extremely delicate'.

Three years ago one of his infertile American patients, Stephanie Yarber, 24, of Arkansas, gave birth after receiving a transplant of some ovarian tissue from her identical twin, but the birth due this week will be the first in the world after the transplant of an entire ovary.

Speaking of the full transplant, Dr Silber said: 'Reconnecting these blood vessels deep inside the pelvis can be a tactical challenge.

'The ovarian artery is less than a third of a millimetre in diameter - in fact so small many gynaecologists have never seen it.'

Dr Silber, who has carried out several entire ovary transplants, believes the transplanted organ could continue working for up to ten years.

Forty years of research on animals lay behind the development into transplanting ovarian tissue between humans.

But interest in his work exploded after the case of Mrs Yarber was publicised. He was promptly contacted by three pairs of identical twins who wanted help, and as a result conducted research into the likelihood of early menopause for twins.

It was discovered that while an average of only one per cent of all women go through the menopause before 40, five per cent of female twins - a rate five times as high.

It has been suggested the higher rate is connected to the fact that the twins had to share their mother's womb, leading to some biological disturbance.

A fertility test that doubles the chances of pregnancy offers new hope to childless couples.

The test, developed at the Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine, helps identify the healthiest embryos for use in IVF treatment and could cut the risk of having twins or triplets.