Basics of Facial Transplantation: Surgical Principles and Management of Risks

Facial transplantation offers an alternative approach towards restoring gross facial disfigurement. Since its advent in 2005, the surgical principles have become continually refined depending on the nature of the injury and anatomical requirements posed by the recipients. Owing to the complex nature of the procedure, it bears a number of different risks. These have included graft rejection from alloimmune responses, complications from the effects of immunosuppression and risk of mortality; in addition, there is an inherent predisposition for the development of psychological complications. This chapter outlines the stepwise process of conducting a facial transplantation with emphasis on key surgical principles. It also provides details with case examples of how to minimize complications associated with the procedure

Analysis of 983 civilian blast and ballistic casualties and the generation of a template of injury burden : an observational study

Funding: The work was supported in part by a grant to LM from School of Medicine, University of St Andrews.Background Terrorism and armed conflict cause blast and ballistic casualties that are unusual in civilian practice. The immediate surgical response to mass casualty events, with civilians injured by these mechanisms, has not been systematically characterised. Standardising an approach to reacting to these events is challenging but is essential to optimise preparation for them. We aimed to quantify and assesses the surgical response to blast and ballistic injuries managed in a world-class trauma unit paradigm. Methods This was an observational study conducted at the UK-led military Medical Treatment Facility, Camp Bastion, Afghanistan from original theatre log-book entries between Nov 5, 2009, and Sept 21, 2014; a total of 10,891 consecutive surgical cases prospectively gathered by surgical teams were catalogued. Patients with combatant status/wearing body-armour to various degrees including interpreters were excluded from the study. Civilian casualties that underwent primary trauma surgery for blast and ballistic injuries were included (n=983). Surgical activity was analysed as a rate per 100 casualties, and patients were grouped according to adult vs. paediatric and ballistic vs. blast injury mechanisms to aid comparison. Findings The three most common surgical procedures for civilian blast injuries were debridement, amputation, and laparotomy. For civilian ballistic injuries, these were debridement, laparotomy and vascular procedures. Blast injuries generated more amputations in both adults and children compared to ballistic injuries. Blast injuries generated more removal of fragmentation material compared to ballistics injuries amongst adult casualties. Ballistic injuries lead to more chest drain insertions in adults. As a rate per 100 casualties, adults injured by blast underwent significantly more debridement (63·5); temporary skeletal stabilisation (13·2) and vascular procedures (12·8) compared to children (43·4, z=4·026, p=0·00007; 5·7, z=2·230, p=0·022; 4·9, z=2·468, p=0·014). Adults injured by ballistics underwent significantly more debridement (63·4); chest drain (12·3) and temporary skeletal fixation procedures (11·4) compared to children (50·0, z=2·058, p=0.040, p<0·05; 2·9, z=2·283, p=0.0230; 2·9, z=2·131, p=0.034 respectively). By comparison, children injured by ballistics underwent significantly more removal of fragmentation and ballistic materials (20·6) when compared to adults (7·7, z=−3·234; p=0.001). Interpretation This is the first evidence-based, template of the immediate response required to manage civilians injured by blast and ballistic mechanisms. The template presented can be applied to similar conflict zones and to prepare for terror attacks on urban populations.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Demographic, medical, and financial statistics from the Jaffna Jaipur Centre for Disability Rehabilitation (JJCDR) database, 1987-2018: a prosthetics, orthotics, and mobility clinic in northern Sri Lanka

# Background When dealing in global health, it is crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of community demographics and needs. From 1983-2009, a 26-year ethnic civil conflict devastated Sri Lanka, disproportionately affecting people living in the north and creating a large amputee population. Here, we use routinely collected prosthetic and orthotic data to investigate the composition of the amputee community in northern Sri Lanka. # Methods The Jaffna Jaipur Centre for Disability Rehabilitation (JJCDR) was established in 1987 and has been the only centre consistently providing prosthetic, orthotic, and non-orthopaedic services in northern Sri Lanka spanning during and after the civil war. In 2004, with the help of the charity Motivation, they established an electronic patient database, which records and maintains information on the JJCDR’s patients. An anonymized copy of the JJCDR database was obtained in November 2018. Summative statistics and temporal trends in patient data were investigated. # Results 3,665 unique patients registered with the JJCDR from 1986-2018 (2,605 male, 1,060 female). Individuals ranged from 0-90 years old, with a mean/median age of 34.76/32 years old. Key findings include: (i) 93.0% patients with amputation site recorded were lower limb amputees, with 74.3% being transtibial amputees; (ii) The majority of patients with cause of amputation recorded had war-related amputations (61.2%); (iii) diabetes was the highest cause for non-war-related amputations (18.3%); (iv) war-related amputations have ceased, while diabetic amputations are on the rise; and (v) peak recorded financial costs due to prosthetic and orthotic (P&O) creation/maintenance occurred in 2013, 4 years after the war ended. # Conclusions These analyses provide crucial insight into the P&O population in northern Sri Lanka, including distribution and frequency for causes/sites of amputations, temporal patterns in causes of amputations, and costs to a P&O centre due to device creation and maintenance. This database and analysis provide invaluable insight into the P&O cohort in northern Sri Lanka, and a unique insight into the P&O needs of a post-conflict LMIC from the perspective of a P&O centre

The use of mixed haematopoietic chimerism to generate allograft tolerance in a large animal model

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