Journal Reviews
Swallowing outcomes following partial laryngectomy: objective assessment and pre-operative predictive factors
Partial laryngectomy constitutes one of the treatments for early stage glottic carcinoma (i.e. T1N0 and T2N0) in specialised centres. Over the years, several partial laryngectomy and reconstruction techniques have been described in the literature. The choice of technique depends on...
One stage nasal reconstruction with local flaps
This is an excellent and authoritative review of an often difficult and controversial (as there are so many options or so few) clinical subject. Better education and earlier diagnosis of skin tumours allows defects with limited size and depth to...
Freestyle facial artery perforator flaps for nasal reconstruction
This is an update from the authors that originally described the freestyle facial artery perforator flap for one stage nasal reconstruction in 2009. They now update with their 10-year experience of freestyle facial artery perforator flaps, accumulating a series of...
Neck Rejuvenation
The May issue of this popular facial plastic journal is dedicated to detailed discussion of surgical and non-surgical procedures for rejuvenation of the neck. Following descriptions of relevant neck and face anatomy, techniques are discussed for neck and face rejuvenation....
Extent of central neck dissection in the patients with thyroid carcinoma
The first level of lymphatic spread in well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma is to the central compartment of the neck, namely, the paratracheal, prelaryngeal and pretracheal lymph nodes. Central neck dissection may carry an increased morbidity, namely, hypoparathyroidism and recurrent laryngeal nerve...
A conservative approach to treat ameloblastoma
Ameloblastoma is an odontogenic tumour that is benign but locally aggressive and is associated with local recurrence. They are rare, accounting for 1% of oral tumours, and occur almost exclusively in the jaws. It is more common in the mandible...
Reconstruction after parotid surgery
This is a retrospective study from Naples, Italy. The authors compare patients with benign parotid disease that were reconstructed with three different techniques. In total 224 patients between February 2002 and March 2009 were included; these patients had either formal...
Nasolabial flap to reconstruct periorbital defects
The authors present a series of 25, mainly geriatric patients that had ablative surgery with complex defects in the paranasal and orbital regions. The paranasal and periorbital regions are extremely important for facial aesthetics and quality of life. The authors...
The many uses of human amnion
Human amnion has historically been the focus of much myth and superstition. To be born with the ‘caul’ intact was considered lucky and the caul was often manufactured into clothing. In 1910 foetal membranes were first used in skin transplantation...
Coupler microvascular anastomoses: how good?
This paper is written by a group of reconstructive surgeons and a school of computing. The study used computational fluid dynamics to model blood flow through idealised sutured and coupled vessels, to investigate if differing anastomotic techniques affect intravascular blood...
Harvesting the flexor hallucis longus: what is the increased morbidity?
The free fibula flap is now widely used in clinical applications for microvascular reconstruction and occasionally, to add bulk, the flexor hallucis longus (FHL) muscle is harvested along with the fibula. The post-operative morbidity is usually described as mild and...
Malignant craniopharyngiomas
Craniopharyngiomas are successfully managed with surgery and / or adjuvant chemoradiotherapy. The transnasal endoscopic route has become increasingly utilised in the management of these challenging tumours. This paper reviews 23 cases from the literature of the rarely reported malignant transformation....
