The onset of colon diverticular disease is a frequent event, with a prevalence that increases with age. Amongst possible complications, free peritoneal perforation with abscess formation may occur. We herein describe two rare presentations of an extraperitoneal sigmoid diverticulum perforation. Our first patient, an 89-year-old female with no signs of distress, developed a subcutaneous abscess and emphysema in an incisional hernia following an appendectomy through a McBurney incision. The second patient, an 82-year-old female, was in general distress at the time of her admission and had a more advanced infection following the occurrence of a sigmoid perforation in a hernial sac. Complicated diverticulitis has a known course and evolution, but with an extraperitoneal presentation, this etiology is not expected. A computed tomography (CT) scan should be completed if the patient is hemodynamically stable, and wide debridement should be performed. Subcutaneous emphysema with an acute abdomen may be a sign of sigmoid perforation. Clinicians should keep this etiology in mind, regardless of the initial presentation.

Microvascular surgery is time consuming and requires high expertise. Laser-assisted vascular anastomosis (LAVA) is a promising sutureless technique that has the potential to facilitate this procedure. In this study, we evaluate the handling of our soldering material and the 1-week patency rate in a porcine model. Six pigs were subjected to LAVA. For each pig, the saphenous artery on one side was transected while the contralateral side was used as control. A porous polycaprolactone scaffold soaked in 40% (w/w) bovine serum albumin solution in combination with 0.1% (w/w) indocyanine green was wrapped at the anastomosis site and at the control site. Both sides were then soldered with a diode laser coupled into a light diffuser fiber emitting radiation with a wavelength of 808 nm and a power of 2-2.2 W. Vessels were successfully soldered with a 100% immediate patency rate. The 1-week patency rate was 83% for the anastomoses versus 67% for the control side. Vessels irradiated for 80 to 90 s tended to maintain the highest patency rate. Macroscopically, there was no difference between the two sides. The patch was easy to handle provided that the environment could be kept dry. This study shows the potential and the limitations of endoluminal LAVA as a one-step procedure without the use of stay sutures. Further studies are needed to improve the soldering material, the long-term patency rate, and standardized irradiation parameters. The long-term effects of laser soldering on the vessel wall remain to be determined.

Background. Lower extremity reconstruction has always been a challenge. Some of the published articles had a major impact on the field but are often not considered as classics because they have fewer citations. We therefore conducted a scientometric analysis of the most cited articles with a focus solely on the lower limb. Methods. A search was conducted on Medline, the Web of Science database, Google Scholar, and Scopus identifying articles relevant to reconstructive surgery of the lower limb. All journals were included with no time frames. Articles relating solely to orthopedics or vascular reconstruction were excluded. The number of citations obtained were then plotted and compared between the different search engines. The mean citation number was calculated by taking into consideration the total number of years since the article’s first year of publication. Articles were then ranked and classified according to their authors, their years of publications, and their countries. They were furthermore categorized and analyzed. Results. Highly cited articles were easily retrieved with Google Scholar, mostly published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (n = 37) and were mainly authored by American Medical Centers (n = 22). Fifty-four percent (54%) of these classic articles discussed the design of new flaps or were anatomical studies. Conclusions. We were not able to find a correlation between the year of citation and the number of citations. The citation pattern of a paper cannot be predicted, but a majority of highly cited article allowed the design of new reconstructive techniques.

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