Journal Reviews

Coupler microvascular anastomoses: how good?

1 November 2014 | | ENT, Maxillofacial Surgery, Skull Base Surgery | Anastomosis, Computational modelling, Coupled, Coupler, Microvascular, Sutured

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?

1 November 2014 | | ENT, Maxillofacial Surgery, Skull Base Surgery | Donor site morbidity, Flexor hallucis longus, Free fibula flap, Hallux function, Microsurgery

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...

Resection margins in head and neck surgery

1 November 2014 | | Maxillofacial Surgery, Head and Neck, Skull Base Surgery | Autofluorescent, Cancer, Frozen, Hypermethylation, Margin, Oral cavity, Resection, Shrinkage

Although an increasing proportion of head and neck malignancies are treated with non-surgical modalities, when surgery is undertaken an incomplete clearance results in significantly worse prognosis. However, the intraoperative assessment of an adequate margin is difficult. The personal practice of...