Significance: With the increasing diabetic population worldwide, diabetic foot ulcers are a significant concern. This study aimed to compare the efficacy of skin substitutes, biomaterials, and topical agents with standard care. Recent Advances: A meta-analysis was conducted using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science were searched using the following keywords: diabetes mellitus AND skin graft OR tissue replacement OR dressing OR drug. Two independent reviewers performed data collection and quality assessment of the eligible studies. The primary outcome was the 12–16-week healing rates and the secondary outcome was recurrence rates. Critical Issues: Thirty-eight randomized controlled trials, including 3862 patients, were analyzed. The studies exhibited low heterogeneity (τ2 = 0.10) without significant asymmetry (Egger’s test, p = 0.8852). After pooling direct and indirect estimates, placenta-based tissue products exhibited the best wound healing probability (P-score = 0.90), followed by skin substitutes with living cells (P-score = 0.70), acellular skin substitutes (P-score = 0.56), and advanced topical dressings (P-score = 0.34) compared with standard of care. The recurrence analysis showed significant improvement in the intervention group compared with the control group (11.21% vs. 15.15%). Future Directions: This network meta-analysis provides the relative effectiveness and rank of biomaterials and topical dressings in diabetic foot ulcer healing. The results could help clinical decision making. Keywords: Diabetic Foot Ulcer, Skin Substitute, Biological Dressing, Wound Healing

Background: Few studies have addressed patient preferences in emergent surgical decision making. Aim of the study: Analyzing patient preferences for hand trauma reconstruction to propose a decision-making model. Methods: A conjoint analysis survey was developed with Sawtooth Software. Three common flaps—i.e., a cross-finger flap (CFF), a dorsal metacarpal artery perforator flap (DMAPF), and an arterialized venous flap (AVF)—were listed as treatment alternatives. Five attributes corresponding to these flaps were recovery time, total procedure, postoperative care methods, postoperative scar condition, and complication rate. Utility and importance scores were generated from the software, and preference characteristics were evaluated using cluster analysis. Results: The survey was completed by 197 participants with hand trauma. Complication risk received the highest importance score (42.87%), followed by scar condition (21.55%). Cluster analysis classified the participants as “conservative,” “practical,” and “dual-concern”. The dual-concern and conservative groups had more foreign laborers and highly educated participants, respectively, than the other groups. Most participants in the conservative and practical groups preferred DMAPF, whereas those in the dual-concern group favored CFF. Our proposed model consisted of shared decision-making and treatment recommendation pathways. Conclusion: Incorporating patient preferences into the decision-making model can strengthen patient-centered care. Further research on the applications of the proposed model is warranted.

Background: Scalp reconstruction is a common challenge for surgeons, and there are many different treatment choices. The “crane principle” is a technique that temporarily transfers a scalp flap to the defect to deposit subcutaneous tissue. The flap is then returned to its original location, leaving behind a layer of soft tissue that is used to nourish a skin graft. Decades ago, it was commonly used for forehead scalp defects, but this useful technique has been seldom reported on in recent years due to the improvement of microsurgical techniques. Previous reports mainly used the crane principle for the primary defects, and here we present a case with its coincidental application to deal with a complication of a secondary defect. Case report: We present a case of a 75-year-old female patient with a temporoparietal scalp squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). After tumor excision, the primary defect was reconstructed using a transposition flap and the donor site was covered by a split-thickness skin graft (STSG). Postoperatively, the occipital skin graft was partially lost resulting in skull bone exposure. For this secondary defect, we applied the crane principle to the previously rotated flap as a salvage procedure and skin grafting to the original tumor location covered by a viable galea fascia in 1.5 months. Both the flap and skin graft healed uneventfully. Conclusions: Currently, the crane principle is a little-used technique because of the familiarity of microsurgery. Nevertheless, the concept is still useful in selected cases, especially for the management of previous flap complications.