Procedure-specific prescribing recommendations may help provide guidance to clinicians who are currently overprescribing opioids after surgery. Multidisciplinary, patient-centered consensus guidelines for more procedures are feasible and may serve as a tool in combating the opioid crisis.

In appropriately selected patients, LDP is more cost-effective than ODP. The increased OR cost associated with LDP is offset by the shorter hospitalization. These data clarify targets for further cost reductions.

In the current scope of extended preservation protocols, high subzero approaches of VCA grafts will be particularly critical enabling technologies for the implementation of tolerance protocols clinically. Ultimately, advances in both preservation techniques and tolerance induction have the potential to transform the field of VCA and eventually lead to broad applications in reconstructive transplantation.

No abstract

Autologous fat transfer is often used to smooth contour irregularities in the reconstructed breast. A potential concern with this technique is that it results in calcified lesions in the breast that can complicate subsequent cancer surveillance. The purpose of this review was to determine how fat grafting to the reconstructed breast impacts postoperative breast imaging. This is a matched cohort analysis of patients who underwent postmastectomy breast reconstruction with and without fat grafting as a secondary procedure. Nonfat grafted reconstructive patients were matched based on age, year of initial reconstruction, and type of reconstruction. Postoperative imaging at our institution was required for inclusion. The two groups were compared in terms of incidence and distribution of radiographic studies performed in follow-up and the need for biopsies. Fifty-one reconstructed breasts with a history of fat grafting were compared to 51 nonfat grafted, reconstructed breasts. The fat grafted group underwent a total of 204 breast imaging studies over a mean follow-up of 4.2 years, while the nonfat grafted group underwent 167 studies over 4.1 years (p = 0.21). More mammograms, ultrasounds, and magnetic resonance images were performed after fat grafting, but a significant difference was evident only for mammography (34 versus 12, p = 0.05). The incidence of breast biopsy to clarify abnormal imaging was nonsignificantly higher in the fat grafted group (17.6% versus 7.8%, p = 0.14). Fewer than 10 percent of imaging studies in the fat grafted cohort were performed to investigate a clinical or radiographic abnormality occupying the same breast quadrant as prior fat injection. Breast cancer patients treated with fat grafting required more breast imaging and biopsies than their nonfat grafted counterparts, but the areas of suspicion poorly corresponded to the site of prior fat grafting. Multimodal breast reconstruction may drive the additional diagnostic burden and not the fat grafting technique itself.

No abstract

Clinically observed types of rejection in VCA include mainly cell-mediated, antibody-mediated and chronic rejection. Advances in diagnosis and treatment of rejection have been made, but there is still much to be learned about VCA-specific rejection.

The present review discusses current developments in tolerance induction for solid organ transplantation with a particular emphasis on chimerism-based approaches. It explains the basic mechanisms of chimerism-based tolerance and provides an update on ongoing clinical tolerance trials. The concept of “delayed tolerance” is presented, and ongoing preclinical studies in the nonhuman primate setting—including current limitations and hurdles regarding this approach—are illustrated. In addition, a brief overview and update on cell-based tolerogenic clinical trials is provided. In a critical approach, advantages, limitations, and potential implications for the future of these different regimens are discussed.