Social Media and Digital Footprints in Orthopaedic Trauma: An Analysis of 1465 Orthopaedic Trauma Association Members.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to quantify social media usage among Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) members. METHODS: All active OTA members were searched for involvement among common social media platforms. Surgeons were then classified as "active" on any given social media site if they posted within the past 6 months. Surgeons were also identified by the region they practiced in, sex, and their practice setting (academic vs. private). Finally, a surgeon's score and number of reviews from common physician review websites were examined. RESULTS: A total of 1465 OTA members were included in the analysis. Most surgeons were male (89.1% [n = 1305]) and practiced in a private setting (54.5% [n = 799]). A total of 590 surgeons (40.3%) had at least one form of social media account. Social media sites most used were LinkedIn with 48.7% (n = 713) and ResearchGate with 29.2% (n = 428). Academic surgeons were more likely to have a ResearchGate, LinkedIn, and Twitter account while private surgeons were more likely to have a personal website ( P < 0.05). Finally, there was no correlation between surgeons more active on social media and average scores on Vitals.com or Healthgrade.com ( P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Most orthopaedic trauma surgeons do not have professional social media accounts. Although social media may help spread scholarship, having a professional social media account does not correlate with better online physician reviews or increased online reviews among orthopaedic trauma surgeons.

Sub-chondroplasty Reduces Pain, Improves Function and Delays the Conversion to Arthroplasty in Patients with Advanced Knee Osteoarthritis: A Stratified Meta-analysis and Quality Assessment.

There is an ongoing interest in alternatives to total knee arthroplasty, as a means to delay inevitable replacement. A possible, minimally invasive, alternative is a sub-chondroplasty, involving interosseous injection of bone substitute materials such as calcium phosphate (CaPo4), platelet-rich plasma (PRP), bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC) or Injectable demineralized bone matrix (iDBM) into the subchondral bone. Eleven clinical trials were found, investigating the effectiveness of sub-chondroplasties performed using CaPo4, PRP, BMAC, and iDBM. A non-stratified and stratified meta-analysis of the included studies were conducted to test for confounding variables across the trials. Non-stratified analysis, regardless of injectable type, revealed a significant improvement in the average Visual Analog Scale (VAS) score and postoperative Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) in patients post sub-chondroplasty, as compared to baseline. This analysis demonstrates that the sub-chondroplasty procedure reduces pain, improves function, and has lower risk of conversion to arthroplasty. (Journal of Surgical Orthopaedic Advances 32(2):065-074, 2023).

Prophylactic Intrawound Antibiotics Significantly Reduce the Risk of Deep Infections in Fracture Fixation: Subgroup Meta-analyses of the Type of Fracture, Antibiotics, and Organism.

OBJECTIVES: To analyze the efficacy of subgroups of various intrawound local antibiotics in reducing the rate of fracture-related infections. DATA SOURCES AND STUDY SELECTION: PubMed, MEDLINE via Ovid, Web of Science, Cochrane database, and Science Direct were searched for articles in English on July 5, 2022, and December 15, 2022. STUDY SELECTION: All clinical studies comparing the incidence of fracture-related infection between the administration of prophylactic systemic and topical antibiotics in fracture repair were analyzed. DATA EXTRACTION: Cochrane collaboration's assessment tool and the methodological bias and the methodological index for nonrandomized studies were used to detect bias and evaluate the quality of included studies, respectively. DATA SYNTHESIS: RevMan 5.3 software (Nordic Cochrane Centre, Denmark) was used to conduct the meta-analyses and generate forest plots. CONCLUSIONS: From 1990 to 2021, 13 studies included 5309 patients. Nonstratified meta-analysis showed that intrawound administration of antibiotics significantly decreased the overall incidence of infection in both open and closed fractures, regardless of the severity of open fracture and antibiotics class [OR = 0.58, ( P = 0.007)] [OR = 0.33, ( P < 0.00001)], respectively. The stratified analysis revealed that prophylactic intrawound antibiotics significantly lowered infection rate in open fracture patients with Gustilo-Anderson type I (OR = 0.13, P = 0.004), type II (OR = 0.29, P = 0.0002), type III (OR = 0.21, P < 0.00001), when either tobramycin PMMA beads (OR = 0.29, P < 0.00001) or vancomycin powder (OR = 0.51, P = 0.03) was applied. This study demonstrates prophylactic administration of intrawound antibiotics significantly decreases the overall incidence of infection in all subgroups of surgically fixated fractures but does not affect the patient's length of hospital stay. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic Level II. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.

Performance of two honey bee subspecies during harsh weather and Acacia gerrardii nectar-rich flow

Both climatic factors and bee forage characteristics affect the population size and productivity of honey bee colonies. To our knowledge, no scientific investigation has as yet considered the potential effect of nectar-rich bee forage exposed to drastic subtropical weather conditions on the performance of honey bee colonies. This study investigated the performance of the honey bee subspecies Apis mellifera jemenitica Ruttner (Yemeni) and Apis mellifera carnica Pollmann (Carniolan) in weather that was hot and dry and in an environment of nectar-rich flora. The brood production, food storage, bee population and honey yield of Yemeni (native) and Carniolan (imported) colonies on Talh trees (Acacia gerrardii Benth.), a nectar-rich, subtropical, and summer bee forage source in Central Arabia were evaluated. Owing to their structural and behavioral adaptations, the Yemeni bees constructed stronger (high population size) colonies than the Carniolan bees. Although both groups yielded similar amounts of Talh honey, the Yemeni bees consumed their stored honey rapidly if not timely harvested. A. m. jemenitica has a higher performance than A. m. carnica during extremely hot-dry conditions and A. gerrardii nectar-rich flow.

Performance of two honey bee subspecies during harsh weather and Acacia gerrardii nectar-rich flow

Both climatic factors and bee forage characteristics affect the population size and productivity of honey bee colonies. To our knowledge, no scientific investigation has as yet considered the potential effect of nectar-rich bee forage exposed to drastic subtropical weather conditions on the performance of honey bee colonies. This study investigated the performance of the honey bee subspecies Apis mellifera jemenitica Ruttner (Yemeni) and Apis mellifera carnica Pollmann (Carniolan) in weather that was hot and dry and in an environment of nectar-rich flora. The brood production, food storage, bee population and honey yield of Yemeni (native) and Carniolan (imported) colonies on Talh trees (Acacia gerrardii Benth.), a nectar-rich, subtropical, and summer bee forage source in Central Arabia were evaluated. Owing to their structural and behavioral adaptations, the Yemeni bees constructed stronger (high population size) colonies than the Carniolan bees. Although both groups yielded similar amounts of Talh honey, the Yemeni bees consumed their stored honey rapidly if not timely harvested. A. m. jemenitica has a higher performance than A. m. carnica during extremely hot-dry conditions and A. gerrardii nectar-rich flow.(AU)