Cutaneous Mucormycosis of the Upper Extremity: Case Reports Highlighting Rapid Diagnosis and Management.

Mucormycosis is a devastating fungal infection known for its angioinvasive spread and hematogenous dissemination, quickly resulting in multiorgan involvement and potentially fatal complications. Timely diagnosis is essential to facilitate early, aggressive debridement, yet the diagnosis remains difficult to obtain because of the need for culture and microscopy diagnosis. We provide case examples, which highlight diagnostic pearls and the multidisciplinary approach that are critical for improving local outcomes, preventing systemic spread, and reducing mortality.

The Impact of Abdominal Liposuction on Abdominally Based Autologous Breast Reconstruction: A Systematic Review.

Prior abdominal liposuction can be viewed as a relative or absolute contraindication to abdominally based autologous breast reconstruction given concerns for damaged perforators and scarring complicating intraoperative dissection. This systematic review aims to explore the outcomes of abdominally based breast reconstruction in patients with a history of abdominal liposuction. A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses-guided literature search was conducted using PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science from the earliest available date through June 2020.

To Decline or Accept: A Guide for Determining the Legitimacy of Academic Conference Invitations.

Importance: After the rise of predatory journals characterized by false claims of legitimacy and a pay-to-publish model, similar "predatory conferences" have become increasingly common. The email inbox of an academic physician can be filled with daily announcements encouraging conference attendance, abstract submission, and often panel or keynote speaker invitations. It therefore becomes important for the plastic surgeon to be able to discern whether these invitations are from "predatory" conferences or legitimate career advancement opportunities, especially early in practice.

Navigating the Gray of Academic Publication: Avoiding Predatory Publishers and Creating Your "Whitelist".

Academic publishing has undergone a transition from print-based, subscription access journals targeted toward physicians and scientists to the widely accessible, open access (OA) format made possible by the Internet. The objectives of OA broadly include audience expansion and improved public access to publicly funded research, reduction of limitations on content reuse and alteration, and prompt turnaround from submission to publication. Despite well-intended founding principles, unexpected disadvantages of the OA model have arisen including the emergence of predatory journals, which exploit the author-pays publishing model with the deceptive promise of reputable publishing platforms.

The Impact of Prior Abdominal Surgery on Complications of Abdominally Based Autologous Breast Reconstruction: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background:  Approximately half of all patients presenting for autologous breast reconstruction have abdominal scars from prior surgery, the presence of which is considered by some a relative contraindication for abdominally based reconstruction. This meta-analysis examines the impact of prior abdominal surgery on the complication profile of breast reconstruction with abdominally based free tissue transfer.

Methods:  Literature search was conducted using PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science.

The Effect of Perforator Skeletonization on Pedicled Fasciocutaneous Flaps of the Lower Extremity: A Systematic Review.

Background:  Lower extremity defects often require free tissue transfer due to a paucity of local donor sites. Locoregional perforator-based flaps offer durable, single-stage reconstruction while avoiding the pitfalls of microsurgery. Multiple harvest techniques are described, yet few studies provide outcome comparisons.

Reconstruction of Full Thickness Calvarial Defect With Dermal Regeneration Template and Full Thickness Skin Graft After Encephaloduroarteriosynangiosis.

Full-thickness defects of the calvarium often present reconstructive challenges, necessitating large rotational flaps or microsurgical free tissue transfer. Although the vascularity of the scalp is robust, there is an increased risk of wound healing complications after both direct and indirect intracranial revascularization procedures as compared to routine craniotomies, as these procedures utilize extracranial scalp vasculature to supply the ischemic brain. Patients presenting with wound healing complications following intracranial revascularization surgeries may not be candidates for extensive reconstructive procedures, as they are often medically comorbid with cardiac disease, diabetes, and a paucity of recipient vessels for free tissue transfer due to underlying vascular disease that prompts initial revascularization surgery.

Improvement in Back Pain Following Abdominoplasty: Results of a 10-Year, Single-Surgeon Series.

Background: Few studies have examined the impact of abdominoplasty on chronic back pain.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to test our hypothesis that patients undergoing abdominoplasty with anterior abdominal wall plication will show significant improvements in back pain and physical function compared with those without plication.

Methods: We utilized Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes to identify patients who underwent abdominoplasty with the senior author over a 10-year period.

Enhanced Recovery after Surgery in Breast Reconstruction: A Systematic Review.

Background:  Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) principles have received focused attention in breast reconstruction. Many protocols have been described in the literature for both autologous and alloplastic reconstruction. This systematic review serves to better characterize successful ERAS protocols described in the literature for potential ease of adoption at institutions desiring implementation.

Postoperative Management of Lower Extremity Free Tissue Transfer: A Systematic Review.

Background:  Free tissue transfer for lower extremity reconstruction is a safe and reliable option for a wide range of challenging wounds; however, no consensus exists regarding postoperative management.

Methods:  A systematic review of postoperative management of lower extremity free tissue transfer was conducted using Medline, Cochrane Database, and Web of Science. Multicenter surveys, randomized controlled trials, cohort studies, and case series were reviewed.

Use of Innovative Technologies in Pediatric Lower Extremity Reconstruction.

The anterolateral thigh (ALT) free flap has proven to be a reliable option for the coverage of soft tissue defects in adults and more recently in the pediatric population. When considering the use of the ALT flap in the pediatric patient, there are few studies that detail techniques specific to pediatric free flap management. We present a unique case of a 14- × 8-cm ALT flap used for traumatic wound coverage in a distal tibial injury in a 6-year-old girl.

Tailoring the protein adsorption properties of whispering gallery mode optical biosensors.

Label-free biosensor technologies have the potential to revolutionize environmental monitoring, medical diagnostics, and food safety evaluation processes due to their unique combinations of high-sensitivity signal transducers and high-specificity recognition elements. This enables their ability to perform real-time detection of deleterious compounds at extremely low concentrations. However, to further improve the biosensors' performance in complex environments, such as wastewater, blood, and urine, it is necessary to minimize nonspecific binding, which in turn will increase their specificity, and decrease the rate of false positives.

Attaching biological probes to silica optical biosensors using silane coupling agents.

In order to interface with biological environments, biosensor platforms, such as the popular Biacore system (based on the Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) technique), make use of various surface modification techniques, that can, for example, prevent surface fouling, tune the hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity of the surface, adapt to a variety of electronic environments, and most frequently, induce specificity towards a target of interest. These techniques extend the functionality of otherwise highly sensitive biosensors to real-world applications in complex environments, such as blood, urine, and wastewater analysis. While commercial biosensing platforms, such as Biacore, have well-understood, standard techniques for performing such surface modifications, these techniques have not been translated in a standardized fashion to other label-free biosensing platforms, such as Whispering Gallery Mode (WGM) optical resonators.

Determination of binding kinetics using whispering gallery mode microcavities.

Silica optical microcavity sensors show great promise in the kinetic evaluation of binding pairs, fundamental in understanding biomolecular interactions. Here, we develop and demonstrate a novel platform, based on bioconjugated silica microsphere resonators, to study the binding kinetics of the biotin-streptavidin system. We characterize the optical performance, verify the covalent attachment of biotin to the surface, and perform streptavidin detection experiments.

Bioconjugation strategies for microtoroidal optical resonators.

The development of label-free biosensors with high sensitivity and specificity is of significant interest for medical diagnostics and environmental monitoring, where rapid and real-time detection of antigens, bacteria, viruses, etc., is necessary. Optical resonant devices, which have very high sensitivity resulting from their low optical loss, are uniquely suited to sensing applications.