Functional and Aesthetic Outcomes of the Anterolateral Thigh Flap in Reconstruction of Upper Limb Defects: A Systematic Review
Why this work is in the frame
A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Soft tissue coverage in the upper limb after trauma, burn injury, or tumour removal is a commonly addressed problem by the plastic surgeon. The anterolateral thigh flap (ALT) is recognized as a popular free flap option for covering various types of soft tissue defects due to its versatility. We aimed to assess the functional and aesthetic outcomes of the ALT flap for reconstruction of upper limb defects. Methods: Four electronic databases were searched (MEDLINE (PubMed), Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane) from inception to Feb 2021. Two reviewers independently extracted the data and performed risk assessment using the modified Downs and Black (MDB) quality assessment tool and the modified Newcastle Ottawa Scale for case series. Results: This review included seven studies for quantitative assessment. The eligible studies had 67 patients. Included studies had used a varied number of validated upper extremity functional scoring systems; the most commonly used score was QuickDASH with mean of 21.24, DASH score was 15.5. In regard to aesthetic outcome, an overall satisfactory result was reported. A secondary debulking procedure was performed in 7 patients. Conclusion: Further studies are recommended to ascertain the functional and aesthetic outcomes of the ALT free flap for upper limb defects, especially using standardized outcome scoring systems. This may be supplemented with a questionnaire that addresses common patient concerns (such as colour, contour, textile and hair growth) for the aesthetic outcome. Nevertheless, based on our review, the ALT flap may be a good reliable reconstructive option for upper limb defects with good functional outcome and satisfactory aesthetic results.
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it