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Schematic diagram of HCR amplification strategy for the detection of miRNAs. (A) The preparation process of AuNHs array. (B) Synthesis of SERS probes (C) HCR process and SERS detection of miR-31 and miR-21.

Background: Reduction malarplasty is a routine clinical procedure among Asian women, but the traditional surgical methods are still associated with serious complications, such as nonunion of the osteotomy sites. Revisional surgery to correct such complications is common, but poor bone healing in the osteotomy area presents a challenge to plastic surgeons. In this report, the authors present a new technique for revision malarplasty that uses the piezosurgery (piezoelectric bone surgery) approach. Patient and diagnosis: A 30-year-old female patient underwent reduction malarplasty with titanium plate fixation in the zygomatic region at another hospital 4 years ago, but the root of the zygomatic arch was not fixed. The patient was diagnosed with bone nonunion, facial asymmetry, and soft tissue sagging on the right side of the face after malarplasty. Intervention: We used piezosurgery to truncate the displaced healed broken end of the zygomatic bone according to the original osteotomy line. Following this, the malar was re-fixed with micro-titanium mesh, and the zygomatic arch was fixed with a titanium plate. Outcome: The patient was followed up for 11 months after the revision procedure. Her facial appearance was satisfactory, and no complications were observed on computed tomography images. Lessons: This report presents a novel therapeutic option for surgical revision of failed malarplasty. Piezosurgery can help overcome the limitations of traditional surgical methods by reducing bone resorption, preventing resorption of the bone in revision malarplasty, modifying the degree of inward and upward movement of the zygomatic bone by facilitating adjustment of the position of the drill hole in the cortex of the bone stump for stable fixation. Hence piezosurgery can be a simple, accurate, and non-invasive osteotomy method for revision malarplasty.

Purpose: To deepen our understanding of the effects of ankyloglossia on articulation, the purpose of this study is to examine consonant production and the perceived accuracy of Mandarin-speaking children with ankyloglossia. Method: Ten tongue-tie (TT) and 10 typically developing (TD) children produced nine Mandarin sibilants that contrast in three places of articulation. Their speech productions were analyzed from six acoustic measurements. To further examine the perceptual consequences, an auditory transcription task ( N = 21) was conducted. Results: The acoustic analyses discovered that the TT children failed to distinguish the three-way place contrast and produced significant acoustic deviations compared with the TD peers. The perceptual transcription results found that TT children's production was significantly misidentified, suggesting severely affected intelligibility. Conclusions: The preliminary findings provide strong support for a correlation between ankyloglossia and distorted speech signals and suggest important interactions between sound errors and linguistic experience. We also propose that ankyloglossia should not be a purely appearance-based diagnosis and that speech production is a crucial index of tongue function in clinical decision making and monitoring.