A Simple and Feasible Earlobe Keloid Pressure Splint
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Earlobe keloids are difficult to manage due to their high recurrence rates and the challenges of applying consistent compression over the ear's complex shape. Common treatments, including surgical excision, intralesional corticosteroid injections, cryotherapy, laser therapy, and radiotherapy, often have recurrence rates exceeding 50 percent when used alone. Combining surgical excision with adjuvant measures can significantly improve outcomes. We describe a novel, low cost, time efficient, and easily fabricated compression device used alongside core excision, low tension closure, and intralesional corticosteroids. Two 25-gauge syringe hubs are removed from the syringe and modified with cautery to create suture channels. They are soaked in chlorhexidine or alcohol, layered with xeroform gauze, and applied bilaterally to the earlobe using nylon sutures in a horizontal mattress or figure-of-eight configuration. Worn continuously for six months, the device delivers sustained, conforming compression, integrates recurrence-reducing principles, and offers a practical alternative to commercial or custom 3D printed devices.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
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 itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".