A Simple Dressing Technique Following Dermofasciectomy and Full Thickness Skin Grafting of the Fingers in the Treatment of Severe Dupuytren’s Contracture

Dupuytren’s disease with severe finger contractures and recurrent contractures following previous surgery often have extensive skin involvement. In these severe cases, excision of the diseased chord along with the involved skin is a good option to reduce the risk of recurrance. The resulting skin defect can be covered with a full thickness skin graft (FTSG) or a cross finger flap. Cross finger flaps have donor finger morbidity and hence a full thickness graft is usually preferred. The FTSG extending to the midlateral margins on both sides of the finger reduces the risk of joint contracture due to graft shrinkage. Once the FTSG is sutured in place, the standard practice is to compress and secure the graft to its recipient bed with a tie-over dressing and this can be time consuming. We present a simple dressing technique to secure the FTSG without the need for a tie-over dressing.     

The curvilinear relationship of early-life adversity and successful aging: the mediating role of mental health

Objectives: The steeling effect suggests that early-life adversity can have a beneficial impact later in life. However, little is known about its underlying mechanisms and long-term outcomes . The study aimed to examine the role of early-life adversity (ELA) on successful aging, and whether this relationship can be explained by mental and physical health.

Method: Socio-demographics, early-life adversity (ELA), individual quality of life (iQoL), and mental and physical health of 270 individuals (M_age = 66.82 years, 71.5% female) were assessed. Polynomial regressions and mediation analyses were conducted.

Results: Significant inverse U-shaped associations were found between ELA and iQoL (β = ?.59, p = .005) and between ELA and mental health (β = ?.64, p = .002), but not between ELA and physical health. Furthermore, mental health significantly mediated the relationship between ELA and iQoL (b = ?.84, BCa CI [?1.66, ?.27]).

Conclusion: Highest level of individual quality of life (i.e. successful aging) was related to a moderate amount of ELA. Additionally, mental health significantly mediated this relationship. These findings suggest that some amount of ELA could be beneficial for successful aging. Resource-focused interventions are needed to improve health and promote successful aging for an underdetected, at-risk subgroup with low early-life adversity.     

Traumatic Cerebral Microbleeds in the Subacute Phase Are Practical and Early Predictors of Abnormality of the Normal-Appearing White Matter in the Chronic Phase

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:In the chronic phase after traumatic brain injury, DTI findings reflect WM integrity. DTI interpretation in the subacute phase is less straightforward. Microbleed evaluation with SWI is straightforward in both phases. We evaluated whether the microbleed concentration in the subacute phase is associated with the integrity of normal-appearing WM in the chronic phase.MATERIALS AND METHODS:Sixty of 211 consecutive patients 18 years of age or older admitted to our emergency department ≤24 hours after moderate to severe traumatic brain injury matched the selection criteria. Standardized 3T SWI, DTI, and T1WI were obtained 3 and 26 weeks after traumatic brain injury in 31 patients and 24 healthy volunteers. At baseline, microbleed concentrations were calculated. At follow-up, mean diffusivity (MD) was calculated in the normal-appearing WM in reference to the healthy volunteers (MD_z). Through linear regression, we evaluated the relation between microbleed concentration and MD_z in predefined structures.RESULTS:In the cerebral hemispheres, MD_z at follow-up was independently associated with the microbleed concentration at baseline (left: B = 38.4 [95% CI 7.5–69.3], P = .017; right: B = 26.3 [95% CI 5.7–47.0], P = .014). No such relation was demonstrated in the central brain. MD_z in the corpus callosum was independently associated with the microbleed concentration in the structures connected by WM tracts running through the corpus callosum (B = 20.0 [95% CI 24.8–75.2], P < .000). MD_z in the central brain was independently associated with the microbleed concentration in the cerebral hemispheres (B = 25.7 [95% CI 3.9–47.5], P = .023).CONCLUSIONS:SWI-assessed microbleeds in the subacute phase are associated with DTI-based WM integrity in the chronic phase. These associations are found both within regions and between functionally connected regions.

The yearly incidence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is around 300 per 100,000 persons.^1,2 Almost three-quarters of patients with moderate to severe TBI have traumatic axonal injury (TAI).³ TAI is a major predictor of functional outcome,^4,5 but it is mostly invisible on CT and conventional MR imaging.^6,7DTI provides direct information on WM integrity and axonal injury.^5,8 However, DTI abnormalities are neither specific for TAI nor stable over time. Possibly because of the release of mass effect and edema and resorption of blood products, the effects of concomitant (non-TAI) injury on DTI are larger in the subacute than in the chronic phase (>3 months).^4,9,10 Therefore, DTI findings are expected to reflect TAI more specifically in the chronic than in the subacute phase (1 week–3 months).⁴ Even in regions without concomitant injury, the effects of TAI on DTI are dynamic, possibly caused by degeneration and neuroplastic changes.^6,11,12 These ongoing pathophysiological processes possibly contribute to the emerging evidence that DTI findings in the chronic phase are most closely associated with the eventual functional outcome.^12,13Although DTI provides valuable information, its acquisition, postprocessing, and interpretation in individual patients are demanding. SWI, with which microbleeds can be assessed with high sensitivity, is easier to interpret and implement in clinical practice. In contrast to DTI, SWI-detected traumatic microbleeds are more stable¹ except in the hyperacute^14,15 and the late chronic phases.¹⁶ Traumatic cerebral microbleeds are commonly interpreted as signs of TAI. However, the relation is not straightforward. On the one hand, nontraumatic microbleeds may be pre-existing. On the other hand, even if traumatic in origin, microbleeds represent traumatic vascular rather than axonal injury.¹⁷ Indeed, TAI is not invariably hemorrhagic.¹⁸ Additionally, microbleeds may secondarily develop after trauma through mechanisms unrelated to axonal injury, such as secondary ischemia.¹⁸DTI is not only affected by pathophysiological changes but also by susceptibility.¹⁹ The important susceptibility-effect generated by microbleeds renders the interpretation of DTI findings at the location of microbleeds complex. In the chronic phase, mean diffusivity (MD) is the most robust marker of WM integrity.^4,6 For these reasons, we evaluated MD in the normal-appearing WM.Much TAI research focuses on the corpus callosum because it is commonly involved in TAI^5,18,20 and it can reliably be evaluated with DTI,^5,21 and TAI in the corpus callosum is related to clinical prognosis.^6,20 The corpus callosum consists of densely packed WM tracts that structurally and functionally connect left- and right-sided brain structures.²² The integrity of the corpus callosum is associated with the integrity of the brain structures it connects.²³ Therefore, microbleeds in brain structures that are connected through the corpus callosum may affect callosal DTI findings. Analogous to this, microbleeds in the cerebral hemispheres, which exert their function through WM tracts traveling through the deep brain structures and brain stem,^24,25 may affect DTI findings in the WM of the latter.Our purpose was to evaluate whether the microbleed concentration in the subacute phase is associated with the integrity of normal-appearing WM in the chronic phase. We investigated this relation within the cerebral hemispheres and the central brain and between regions that are functionally connected by WM tracts.