Effects of Marijuana Use in Patients Undergoing Abdominal Free Flap Breast Reconstruction

PURPOSE: Marijuana use is associated with incidence of vascular inflammation and clotting, resulting in endothelial damage and arteritis. As marijuana use rises, few studies have evaluated its impact on surgical outcomes, wound healing, and vascular anastomoses in free flap breast reconstruction. METHODS: A retrospective cohort study of patients undergoing abdominal free flap breast reconstruction between 2016 and 2022 at a large metropolitan healthcare system was performed. Patient demographics, comorbidities, procedural details, and complications were analyzed. Minor complications were defined as skin necrosis, any wound requiring management in the clinic, hematoma, seroma, or fat necrosis that did not require intervention. Major complications were defined as re-operation, flap loss, thromboembolic events, or hospital readmission. Active marijuana users were those with marijuana use within 12 weeks of surgery. Those who utilized nicotine within 12 weeks of surgery were excluded from analysis. RESULTS: 149 patients underwent 241 deep inferior epigastric artery-based flaps for breast reconstruction. There were 17 active marijuana users. There were no significant differences in patient age, race, BMI, cancer treatment, cancer stage, or operative details. However, there were significantly higher rates of anxiety/depression, tobacco and narcotic use, and hypertension in the marijuana use group (P CONCLUSION: Marijuana use appears to not impact surgical outcomes in breast free flap reconstruction. Advising marijuana abstinence pre-operatively may not alter patient outcomes. This study may be limited by power and further evaluation will be needed

Do Lower Extremity Injuries of NFL Players Affect their Yearly Income?

Introduction: Injuries are arguably the most daunting career setbacks professional sports players have to face. To better understand the drawbacks of sports injuries, we decided to examine players’ annual income before and after sports injuries. Income is arguably the most important metric of success for professional athletes. To make the study more relevant for the US, we collected data on one of the most viewed professional sports leagues in the country: the National Football League (NFL). Methods: We examined the NFL’s weekly injury reports for seasons from 2016 to 2020, and recorded players with lower extremity injuries (LEI) (Hamstring, Calves, Groin, or Quadricep). We accessed pro-football-reference.com and spotrac.com to record player identifiers and individual annual salaries 3 years prior to the index injury and up to 7 years after if data was available respectively. A google spreadsheet was used to record all information noted above. Results: Data is available, pending analysis. Discussion: This project will allow us to better understand the impact injuries have on the lives of hundreds of professional sports players and how it can alter the course of their careers. This project sheds light on the importance of this topic. We plan to build off of this in future research by examining variables that affect recovery time and the recurrence of injury throughout athletes’ careers

Is old really gold? Examining the effect of playing experience in preventing professional athletes’ injuries

Introduction: The literature contains research showing that age increases the risk of injury in individuals who live sedentary lives. Looking at injury rates in individuals who are active for a living can better inform the importance of exercise training regimens in an aging population Methods: Combing player injury data from thet NFL and player statistics from pro-football-reference.com, we will create a dataset containing variables like seasons played in the NFL and age of player at time of injury. We will include all uninjured players in our dataset for comparison. We will use ANOVA to figure out how much these variables accounted for the incidence of injury in athletes. Results: Data is in the process of being collected. We expect that data analysis will likely indicate that player position (Quarter back, Linebacker, etc.) was the variable recorded that explained the most variance in injury. Age of player might be weakly positively correlated and seasons played in the NFL will probably have no correlation. Discussion: Seasons played probably does not correlate to injury risk since many NFL players have played football for multiple years prior to the NFL: future NFL players may start their football careers in middle school or highschool and spend differing amounts of time in college football, it is unfeasible to use this variable to extrapolate the actual amount of football experience players have. While older players are likely more injury prone than younger players, this factor is minimal compared to the likely effect of player position. Probably, active older adults should be encouraged to pursue physical activity that has been shown to have less risk of injury

Radiated Immediate Prepectoral Direct to Implant Reconstruction: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Purpose: Increasing use of prepectoral plane in post mastectomy implant-based reconstruction has made immediate direct to implant (DTI) reconstruction more achievable. There has been increased incidence of post mastectomy radiation therapy (PMRT) making it important to understand the complication profile of immediate DTI reconstruction in patients who may require adjuvant radiation therapy. Methods: A retrospective cohort study of consecutive patients undergoing prepectoral DTI reconstruction with and without PMRT was performed. Patient and treatment level factors, operative, and post-operative outcomes were extracted on both the patient and breast level for the prepectoral radiated and nonradiated patients. The presence of at least one minor complication (superficial or full-thickness necrosis, cellulitis requiring oral antibiotics, hematoma, or seroma) or major complication (cellulitis requiring intravenous antibiotics, hospital readmission, explanation, or unplanned return to the operating room) was compared. We also evaluated how radiation affects outcomes of prepectoral DTI vs subpectoral DTI. Univariate analysis was performed to evaluate differences in outcomes between groups. Results: 242 patients underwent DTI reconstruction.148 patients underwent prepectoral DTI reconstruction. 54 patients underwent subpectoral DTI reconstruction. Patients who underwent PMRT had higher rates of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and axillary lymph node dissection. Univariate analysis did not demonstrate any significant differences in minor or major complications between the radiated and non-radiated prepectoral DTI breasts. Radiated prepectoral patients had a higher rate of capsular contracture and explant for capsular contracture. Conclusion: Immediate prepectoral DTI reconstruction in patients who will have PMRT has an improved complication profile compared to subpectoral placement

Do Lower Extremity Injuries of NFL Players Affect their Contracts?

Introduction: There is likely a correlation between National Football League (NFL) players who endure lower extremity injuries (LEI) and the length and remuneration of subsequent contracts. This kind of data can be useful in training a model to predict how an injury may influence a player’s contracts in the future. Methods: We examined the NFL’s weekly injury reports for seasons from 2016 to 2020, and recorded players with lower extremity injuries (LEI) (Hamstring, Calves, Groin, or Quadricep). We accessed pro-football-reference.com and spotrac.com to record player identifiers and individual annual salaries 3 years prior to the index injury and up to 7 years after if data was available respectively. A google spreadsheet was used to record all information noted above.We will use machine learning to create a model of these variables. Results: Our analysis likely indicates that LEI has a strong negative correlation with reduction in length of a player’s subsequent contract and reduction in annual salary. Our working hypothesis is that mean contract length will be reduced by six months and mean annual salary will be reduced by $50,000. Discussion: This project will allow our team to further explore the implications of injuries on the careers of athletes and what other barriers these injuries create for players participating in these sports. This project can act as a stepping stone to help elucidate how a variety of lower extremity orthopedic injuries may impact professional athletes’ career measured by their earning potential

Which position in American Football is more likely to get you benched due to LEI? An Analysis of NFL Players injured in the years 2016-2020.

Title: Which position in American Football is more likely to get you benched due to LEI? An Analysis of NFL Players injured in the years 2016-2020. Authors: Robert de la Torre, Abdullah Sahyouni, Kinan Sawar, Gautham Pavar, Cris J. Diaz Alvarenga, Shravan Morisetty, Justin Bennie, Bohdan Matsko, Niyaz Uddin, Olivia Pakula Introduction: In American Football, there are twenty-four different positional roles that a player may assume. Some positions are unique to offense, such as quarterback and wide receiver. Others are unique to defense, such as cornerback or linebacker. There are also unique positions such as kicker or punter. All of these positions have different roles on the field and thus, different kinesiological patterns. These differences may lead to a variation in LE injuries experienced by players in different positions. Due to the prevalence of LEI\u27s in the NFL, we wanted to look at the trends for different injuries to see if there is positional correlation. Methods: We examined the NFL’s weekly injury reports for seasons from 2016 to 2020, and recorded players with four different categories of lower extremity injuries (LEI): (Hamstring, Calves, Groin, or Quadricep). Both the positional data and the nature of the injury are presented on NFL.com. We are looking at the frequency of various injuries in relation to position, as well as injury timelines for the four different LE injury categories. Results: Data is available and pending analysis. Discussion: The data collected from this study may be beneficial for any athlete engaging in organized football. Individuals with a certain injury history can be made aware of the impact their specific roles on the field may have on their injury. This can be useful information for parents and coaching staff/trainers to be aware of. Injuries to key players can dramatically impede a football season\u27s success in both monetary and subjective terms