Global surgery is stronger when infection prevention and control is incorporated: a commentary and review of the surgical infection landscape.

Incorporating infection prevention and control (IPC) is crucial for strengthening global surgery, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This review article highlights the critical role IPC plays in ensuring equitable and sustainable surgical care, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 3 and 10, which aim to promote health and reduce inequalities. Surgical site infections (SSIs) and other healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) disproportionately affect LMICs, where IPC infrastructure is often underdeveloped.

Insights Into Facial Surgery Trends in the United States in the Setting of Gender Dysphoria: A National Analysis From 2012 to 2019.

Introduction: Over the past decade, there has been an improvement in access to gender-affirming surgical care for the transgender population. Even with improvements, this population continues with a high level of inequity among access to specialized surgical care. While multiple studies have previously focused on trends among top and bottom surgery, this study provides trends specifically among facial gender affirmation surgery (FGAS) within the United States.

ChatGPT Virtual Assistant for Breast Reconstruction: Assessing Preferences for a Traditional Chatbot versus a Human AI VideoBot.

Background: Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have reshaped telehealth, with AI chatbots like Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer (ChatGPT) showing promise in various medical applications. ChatGPT is capable of offering basic patient education on procedures in plastic and reconstructive surgery (PRS), yet the preference between human AI VideoBots and traditional chatbots in plastic and reconstructive surgery remains unexplored.

Methods: We developed a VideoBot by integrating ChatGPT with Synthesia, a human AI avatar video platform.

Evaluating Patient-reported Outcomes after Bilateral Reduction Mammoplasty: A Comparison of Reduction Techniques at a University Hospital.

Background: Macromastia, defined as the abnormal enlargement of breasts, burdens individuals physically and psychologically, impacting their daily lives beyond aesthetics. Reduction mammoplasty offers relief by restoring proportional breast volume and appropriate contour. Surgical success relies on choosing a suitable individualized operative technique tailored to the patient's presentation and postoperative goals.

Declaration on infection prevention and management in global surgery.

Surgeons in their daily practice are at the forefront in preventing and managing infections. However, among surgeons, appropriate measures of infection prevention and management are often disregarded. The lack of awareness of infection and prevention measures has marginalized surgeons from this battle.

Enhanced recovery after surgery pathways for deep inferior epigastric perforator flap breast reconstruction: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) surgery is one of the most difficult breast reconstruction techniques available, both in terms of operating complexity and patient recovery. Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) pathways were recently introduced in numerous subspecialties to reduce recovery time, patient pain, and cost by providing multimodal perioperative care. Plastic surgery has yet to widely integrate ERAS with DIEP reconstruction, mostly due to insufficient data on patient outcomes with this combined approach.

Management of Lipedema Beyond Liposuction: A Case Study.

Lipedema is a pathologic accumulation of adipose tissue in the subcutaneous layer of the extremities. This connective tissue disorder, which predominately affects females, is often misdiagnosed despite an incidence of ∼11%. Misdiagnosis often leads to delays in appropriate treatment, further increasing the morbidity of the condition.

Treatment of Chronic Hypertrophic Burn Scars With a Fractional CO 2 Laser Is Well Tolerated in an Outpatient Clinic Setting.

Introduction: The necessity of treating hypertrophic burn scars has expanded significantly with increased burn survivorship. Ablative lasers, such as carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) lasers, have been the most common nonoperative option for improving functional outcomes in severe recalcitrant hypertrophic burn scars. However, the overwhelming majority of ablative lasers used for this indication require a combination of systemic analgesia, sedation, and/or general anesthesia due to the painful nature of the procedure.

#PRS: A Study of Plastic Surgery Trends With the Rise of Instagram.

Background: Instagram (Menlo Park, CA) has become a popular means of advertisement for aesthetic surgery procedures, influencing patients' likelihood of undergoing a procedure. In this study, the authors aim to explore public interest in aesthetic procedures before and after the Instagram platform started gaining in popularity through Google Trends (Google, Mountain View, CA), a platform with previously demonstrated utility for tracking interest in surgical procedures.

Objectives: The authors hypothesize that as a result of increased medical marketing on Instagram, there is an increase in public interest in elective procedures of plastic surgery.

Content and Engagement Among Plastic Surgeons on Instagram.

Background: Patients routinely use social media to locate providers, review before-and-after photographs, and discuss experiences, making it a powerful marketing tool for plastic surgeons. A few studies have systematically evaluated plastic surgery app content.

Objectives: This study aims to analyze engagement levels and content posted by top plastic surgeon influencers on Instagram (Menlo Park, CA).

Optimizing postoperative outcomes following neoadjuvant chemotherapy and mastectomy with immediate reconstruction: A national analysis.

Background: The optimal timing between last neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) session and mastectomy with immediate reconstruction (MIR) procedures has sparse data to support optimization of postoperative outcomes. Current literature suggests that timing is not a predictor of complications in patients undergoing implant-based reconstruction following NAC and other literature suggests guidelines based on tumor staging. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest and most recent study characterizing the effect of time between NAC and mastectomy with immediate reconstruction on postoperative complications.