Patient satisfaction and function after bilateral ankle arthrodeses.

BACKGROUND: The optimum way to manage patients with bilateral ankle arthritis (AA) is unclear. METHODS: This review was performed to report the midterm satisfaction and functional outcome of a series of patients who have undergone bilateral staged ankle arthrodesis. RESULTS: Eight patients, median age 68.5 yrs (range 59-80) were followed-up for a median of 58.5 months (range 24-100). All fusions united in a median time of 12.8 weeks (range 10-19) Their median AOFAS hindfoot score was 79.5 (range 71-90). Six patients (75%) were very satisfied, one was satisfied, and the other neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. Two patients developed symptomatic subtalar arthritis requiring subtalar fusion. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to report the outcome of bilateral AA independent to that of unilateral AA. Bilateral AA appears to give patients a good functional result with high patient reported satisfaction into the medium term.

Ongoing pain and deformity after an excision of the accessory navicular.

Although a painful accessory navicula and a pes planus often coexist, they are not necessarily causally related, and each condition should be assessed and treated individually. A child or adolescent will notice the rubbing of an accessory navicula against footwear as the foot and boney swelling grows. The cause of persistent local pain such as inadequate bony resection, scar pain, irritation of the tibialis posterior tendon, and so forth should be sought and addressed; management will depend on the specific presentation and previous procedure performed. The cause of the ongoing pain should be investigated.

The danger zone for the plantar and calcaneal divisions of the tibial nerve - a cadaveric study

In this anatomical, cadaveric study we describe a novel method of determining the point of origin of the plantar and calcaneal divisions of the tibial nerve around the tarsal tunnel, in the clinical setting, without requiring the exact path of the nerve to be known. To this end, we describe an area that arises from the midpoint of the navicular-calcaneal line (MP-NCL), which contains both nerve divisions in the majority of cases. We called this area the danger zone. We identified the size and location of this danger zone by dissecting a total of 50 cadaveric feet. We measured the distance from the origin of each nerve division to both the navicular tuberosity and the calcaneal insertion of the Achilles tendon. From these measurements we were able to calculate the distance of each division from the MP-NCL along two axes, the navicular-calcaneal line (NCL) and a line perpendicular to this crossing at the midpoint. The danger zone of the tibial nerve, around the tarsal tunnel is a 16.5 cm² (5.9 x 2.8 cm) quadrilateral area that passes posterior and proximal from the MP-NCL. This area in our study contained both the plantar and calcaneal divisions of the posterior tibial nerve in 82% of cases. Those divisions that arose outside this area (18%) occurred up to 0.5 cm anterior to the MP-NCL and 1.4 cm distal to the NCL

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UKPMC: a full text article resource for the life sciences.

UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) is a full-text article database that extends the functionality of the original PubMed Central (PMC) repository. The UKPMC project was launched as the first 'mirror' site to PMC, which in analogy to the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, aims to provide international preservation of the open and free-access biomedical literature. UKPMC (http://ukpmc.ac.uk) has undergone considerable development since its inception in 2007 and now includes both a UKPMC and PubMed search, as well as access to other records such as Agricola, Patents and recent biomedical theses. UKPMC also differs from PubMed/PMC in that the full text and abstract information can be searched in an integrated manner from one input box. Furthermore, UKPMC contains 'Cited By' information as an alternative way to navigate the literature and has incorporated text-mining approaches to semantically enrich content and integrate it with related database resources. Finally, UKPMC also offers added-value services (UKPMC+) that enable grantees to deposit manuscripts, link papers to grants, publish online portfolios and view citation information on their papers. Here we describe UKPMC and clarify the relationship between PMC and UKPMC, providing historical context and future directions, 10 years on from when PMC was first launched.

Optimal closure of surgical wounds in forefoot surgery: are adhesive strips beneficial?

A subcuticular suture is an ideal closure method of surgical wounds where the aim is healing by primary intention. The addition of adhesive strips over the subcuticular suture appears to be based on anecdotal, rather than experimental evidence. We performed a prospective study to compare the postoperative wound complications of combination closure with subcuticular closure alone. The wounds of 60 consecutive patients undergoing foot surgery were assessed clinically for wound complications at one week postoperatively. Patients who had a combined closure were more likely to develop wound complications. They were also twice as likely to return to clinic for a further wound check. The addition of adhesive strips to such a closure appears to offer no clinical benefit, and can be detrimental to wound healing. We recommend meticulous closure of surgical wounds with continuous, absorbable, subcuticular suture without adhesive strips, for an optimal outcome.