As the global population of older persons increases, age-related medical conditions will have a greater impact on public health. DXA-derived bone and soft tissue metrics are associated with adverse clinical events in aging persons. This study aims to investigate the regional body composition of the appendices by whole-body DXA scans, and the age-related relationships between measures of bone and soft tissue in healthy Caucasian females of a Greek origin residing in the Mediterranean area. Body composition of the legs and the arms was analyzed, and lean mass (LM) and fat mass (FM) metrics were calculated in 330 women aged 20-85 years, using DXA. Peak bone mineral density (BMD) of the legs and arms was achieved between ages 20-30 and 41-50 years, respectively. The overall BMD reduction with age was for the legs 43% and the arms 32.2% (p < 0.001). Peak %LM of the legs and the arms was achieved between ages 20-30. The overall reduction of %LM with age was for the legs 22.5% (p < 0.001) and arms 6.6% (p < 0.05). Peak %FM of the legs and arms was attained between ages 31-40 and 61-70, respectively. The overall %FM reduction with age was for the legs and arms 7.5% and 1.9% (p > 0.05). In appendicular sites, Greek women reach peak values of bone mass in the legs first, in early adulthood. Bone loss predominates in the legs as women age. Also, with advancing age Greek women show preferential significant decreases of %LM and %FM in the legs as opposed to the arms. Although variation in appendicular bone and soft tissue metrics is present, the implications of variable biological crosstalks among the tissue components as women age may ultimately lay the foundation for future clinical trials aimed at healthy aging.

Burns are frequent lesions, often leading to serious functional or even life-threatening sequelae. Their care poses a problem in the countries of the South due to the lack of specialized centres. Through this study, we would like to share our experience. This was a descriptive retrospective study carried out over 36 months on 24 patients treated and followed up in the department for burn sequelae involving a limb. Functional results were classified as excellent, good, fairly good, fair and poor. Aesthetically, they have been categorized into satisfactory, unsatisfactory and poor. We recorded 1480 patients who underwent surgery, 24 of whom were operated on after burns. We noted a female predominance (sex ratio of 1.6) with an average age of 24.2 years (range 16-40). Domestic accidents (n=19) were the main circumstance of occurrence and there was a preponderance of thermal burns by flame (n=21). Twenty people were treated in the first year after burn with excellent, good and fair results in 10, 9 and 4 cases respectively. Burns can cause significant functional sequelae, the management of which requires specialized nursing staff. Training of caregivers oriented towards burn care without forgetting the related means remains a key element to minimizing the occurrence of these sequelae.

The modular organization of tetrapod paired limbs and girdles, influenced by the expression of Hox genes is one of the primary driving forces of the evolution of animal locomotion. The increased morphological diversification of the paired limbs is correlated with reduced between-limb covariation, while correlation within the elements is usually higher than between the elements. The tailed amphibians, such as Lissotriton newts, have a biphasic lifestyle with aquatic and terrestrial environments imposing different constraints on limb skeleton. By employing the methods of computerized microtomography and 3D geometric morphometrics, we explored the pattern of morphological variation, disparity, modularity and morphological integration in the proximal parts of the anterior limbs of six species of Eurasian small bodied newts. Although the species significantly differ in limb shape, there is a great overlap in morphology of scapula and humerus, and there are no differences in morphological disparity. For the scapula, the shape differences related to the duration of the aquatic period are in length, depth and curvature. The shape of the humerus is not affected by the length of aquatic period, and shape differences between the species are related to robustness of the body. The length of aquatic period has statistically supported phylogenetic signal. The scapula and humerus are structures of varying modularity. For the humerus, the strongest support on the phylogenetic level was for the capitulum/shaft hypothesis, which can also be interpreted as functional modularity. For the scapula, the greatest support was for the antero-posterior hypothesis of modularity in case of Lissotriton vulgaris, which can be explained by different functional roles and muscle insertion patterns, while there was no phylogenetic modularity. The modularity patterns seem to correspond with the general tetrapod pattern, with modularity being more pronounced in the distal structure. The future research should include more salamandrid taxa with different habitat preferences and both adult and larval stages, in order to explore how size, phylogeny and ecology affect the morphology and covariation patterns of limbs.

BACKGROUND: Accurate and timely assessment of children\'s developmental status is crucial for early diagnosis and intervention. More accurate and automated developmental assessments are essential due to the lack of trained health care providers and imprecise parental reporting. In various areas of development, gross motor development in toddlers is known to be predictive of subsequent childhood developments.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to develop a model to assess gross motor behavior and integrate the results to determine the overall gross motor status of toddlers. This study also aimed to identify behaviors that are important in the assessment of overall gross motor skills and detect critical moments and important body parts for the assessment of each behavior.
METHODS: We used behavioral videos of toddlers aged 18-35 months. To assess gross motor development, we selected 4 behaviors (climb up the stairs, go down the stairs, throw the ball, and stand on 1 foot) that have been validated with the Korean Developmental Screening Test for Infants and Children. In the child behavior videos, we estimated each child\'s position as a bounding box and extracted human keypoints within the box. In the first stage, the videos with the extracted human keypoints of each behavior were evaluated separately using a graph convolutional networks (GCN)-based algorithm. The probability values obtained for each label in the first-stage model were used as input for the second-stage model, the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) algorithm, to predict the overall gross motor status. For interpretability, we used gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM) to identify important moments and relevant body parts during the movements. The Shapley additive explanations method was used for the assessment of variable importance, to determine the movements that contributed the most to the overall developmental assessment.
RESULTS: Behavioral videos of 4 gross motor skills were collected from 147 children, resulting in a total of 2395 videos. The stage-1 GCN model to evaluate each behavior had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.79 to 0.90. Keypoint-mapping Grad-CAM visualization identified important moments in each behavior and differences in important body parts. The stage-2 XGBoost model to assess the overall gross motor status had an AUROC of 0.90. Among the 4 behaviors, \"go down the stairs\" contributed the most to the overall developmental assessment.
CONCLUSIONS: Using movement videos of toddlers aged 18-35 months, we developed objective and automated models to evaluate each behavior and assess each child\'s overall gross motor performance. We identified the important behaviors for assessing gross motor performance and developed methods to recognize important moments and body parts while evaluating gross motor performance.

The reconstruction of posttraumatic defects of bone and soft tissue, as well as residual deformities of the bone is often a lengthy and complicated procedure. Multiple surgical interventions are necessary to reconstruct the affected extremity and restore its functionality. To achieve an optimal result it often takes months or years and requires great patience and compliance of the patient. This treatment should be carried out in centers with the appropriate instrumental and human resources. Since the pathologies are often complex with bony deformities or loss of bone, as well as infections and soft tissue defects, the treatment should be carried out by very experienced surgeons to successfully manage these complex reconstructions. This often requires interdisciplinary cooperation, especially with experienced plastic surgeons. A soft tissue reconstruction for better blood circulation in the exposed bony structures, as well as the bony defects themselves, can be reconstructed at the same time.
UNASSIGNED: Die Rekonstruktion posttraumatischer Defekte von Knochen und Weichteilen sowie verbliebener Deformitäten ist ein oft langwieriges und kompliziertes Verfahren. Mehrfache operative Eingriffe sind notwendig, um nach Monaten bis Jahre ein optimales Ergebnis zu erreichen und letztendlich die Funktionsfähigkeit der betroffenen Extremität wieder herzustellen. Diese Behandlung sollte durch sehr erfahrene Operateure durchgeführt werden, die auch über die entsprechenden instrumentellen und personellen Ressourcen verfügen, um diese komplexen Rekonstruktionen erfolgreich durchzuführen. Hier bedarf es nicht selten einer interdisziplinären Zusammenarbeit insbesondere mit versierten plastischen Chirurgen. Eine weichteilige Deckung zur besseren Durchblutung der freiliegenden knöchernen Strukturen als auch knöcherne Defekte an sich, können so gemeinsam wieder rekonstruiert werden.

Effective cryopreservation of large tissues, limbs, and organs has the potential to revolutionize medical post-trauma reconstruction options and organ preservation and transplantation procedures. To date, vitrification and directional freezing are the only viable methods for long-term organ or tissue preservation, but are of limited clinical relevance. This work aimed to develop a vitrification-based approach that will enable the long-term survival and functional recovery of large tissues and limbs following transplantation. The presented novel two-stage cooling process involves rapid specimen cooling to subzero temperatures, followed by gradual cooling to the vitrification solution (VS) and tissue glass transition temperature. Flap cooling and storage were only feasible at temperatures equal to or slightly lower than the VS Tg (i.e., -135°C). Vascularized rat groin flaps and below-the-knee (BTK) hind limb transplants cryopreserved using this approach exhibited long-term survival (>30 days) following transplantation to rats. BTK-limb recovery included hair regrowth, normal peripheral blood flow, and normal skin, fat, and muscle histology. Above all, BTK limbs were reinnervated, enabling rats to sense pain in the cryopreserved limb. These findings provide a strong foundation for the development of a long-term large-tissue, limb and organ preservation protocol for clinical use.

Encouraging physical activity (PA) for adolescents is necessary to achieve and maintain optimal health, but it may increase the risk of PA-related injuries. This study sought to assess the frequency, location, type, and severity of PA-related injuries in Saudi students aged 13 to 18 years and to identify associated risk factors. A total of 402 students, including 206 boys aged 15.87 ± 1.69 years and 196 girls aged 15.83 ± 1.70 years, were randomly assigned to participate in this study. For each participant, height, weight, body mass index, and fat percentage were measured. Responses to a specially designed four-part self-administered questionnaire were also collected. Results revealed that better specific knowledge was associated with a lower likelihood of sustaining injuries (β = -0.136; p = 0.001) but increased sedentary behaviors were associated with a greater likelihood of sustaining a PA-related injury (β = 0.358; p = 0.023). Gender, knowledge, and sedentary behaviors were the factors overall associated with a greater likelihood of suffering 1, 2, and 3 or more PA-related injuries. However, gender, fat-free mass, knowledge, and sedentary behaviors were associated overall with a greater likelihood of bruises, strains, fractures, sprains, concussions, and at least two types of PA-related injuries. Collectively, we should pay attention to the PA-related injury problem among middle and high school students, particularly when promoting a physically active lifestyle.

Isolated lateralized overgrowth (ILO), formerly referred to as hemihyperplasia/hemihypertrophy, is the overgrowth of one-half of the body to its contralateral in the absence of a recognizable pattern of malformations or genetic syndromes. Our objective was to analyze the growth clinical and radiological characteristics of patients with ILO under follow-up in a tertiary care hospital in Argentina between 1993 and 2020.
Retrospective, observational, single cohort study of patients with ILO.
A total of 76 cases were included; 41 were males. Median years of follow-up: 5.85 (interquartile range [IQR]: 2.60-10.96), maximum: 15.76 years. Forty-eight of 76 patients had overgrowth compromising more than 1 body segment (complex ILO). The mean birth weight Z-score of term girls with complex ILO was +0.51 (standard deviation [SD]: 0.91) (p 0.022). Most children grew between the 50th and 97th centile of the Argentinian population height reference. The median leg length discrepancy was 1.5 cm (IQR: 1.01-2.2) in patients receiving medical treatment and 3.70 cm (IQR: 2.95-3.98 cm) in those who required epiphysiodesis. Progression of discrepancy ≤ 2 cm was observed in 75% of cases. Renal asymmetry ≥ 1 cm was observed in 8 cases; Wilms tumor was noted in 2 cases: mean age at diagnosis: 0.75 years.
Prenatal growth of children with ILO is normal, except in girls with complex ILO, in whom it tends to be increased. The average height of boys and girls tends to be located in high centiles with normal growth over time. Embryonal tumor screening is recommended in this group of children.
Introducción. El sobrecrecimiento lateral aislado (SLA), antes denominado hemihiperplasia/hemihipertrofia, se refiere al sobrecrecimiento corporal lateral en ausencia de un patrón reconocible de malformaciones o síndromes genéticos. El objetivo fue analizar el crecimiento y las características clínico-radiológicas de pacientes con SLA en seguimiento en un hospital de tercer nivel en Argentina entre 1993 y 2020. Población y métodos. Estudio retrospectivo, observacional, de una cohorte de pacientes con SLA. Resultados. Se incluyeron 76 casos, 41 varones. Mediana de años de seguimiento: 5,85 (rango intercuartílico [RIC] 2,60-10,96), máximo 15,76 años. Cuarenta y ocho de 76 pacientes presentaron sobrecrecimiento en más de un segmento corporal (SLA complejo). El puntaje Z promedio de peso al nacer de niñas de término con SLA complejo fue +0,51 (desviación estándar [DE] 0,91) (p 0,022). El crecimiento en estatura de la mayoría de los niños se ubicó entre los centilos 50 y 97 de la población de referencia. La mediana de asimetría de longitud de miembros inferiores fue 1,5 cm (RIC 1,01-2,2) en pacientes con tratamiento médico y 3,70 cm (RIC 2,95- 3,98 cm) en aquellos que requirieron epifisiodesis. El 75 % mostró una progresión de la asimetría menor o igual a 2 cm. Ocho casos presentaron asimetría renal mayor o igual a 1 cm; 2 casos presentaron nefroblastoma: edad promedio al diagnóstico 0,75 años. Conclusiones. El crecimiento prenatal de niños con SLA es normal, excepto en niñas con SLA complejo en quienes tiende a estar aumentado. La estatura promedio se ubica en centilos altos con crecimiento normal. Se recomienda realizar cribado de tumores embrionarios en este grupo de niños.

UNASSIGNED: The reconstruction of microsurgery emphasizes the low morbidity of donor sites. The arterialized venous flaps (AVFs) are tissue flaps harvested without conventional vascular pedicles. However, reports of high necrosis rates and poor understanding of physiology hindered the application of many surgeons in clinical practice. Recently, experimental and clinical studies have demonstrated the feasibility and relative reliability of various AVF techniques. This study aims to report the clinical results of the arterialized venous free flaps in reconstructing soft tissue defects of limbs and propose methods to improve flap perfusion, extending the indications for using the flaps based on the authors\' clinical experiences.
UNASSIGNED: We retrospectively reviewed the records of 16 patients that underwent arterialized venous free flaps for limb wound reconstruction from January 2019 to June 2021. Following the venous network on the calf\'s tibial side, large venous flaps can be designed.
UNASSIGNED: Of the 16 cases, 14 (87.50%) cases (including 8 cases significantly congested with tension blisters) showed complete survival, and 2 (12.5%) cases, which had only one vein performed anastomosis of the efferent vein according to the vascularity of the recipient bed, showed partial necrosis. In all cases, no infection or other specific complications occurred in the donor areas.
UNASSIGNED: The rate of congestion and necrosis of arterialized venous flaps is still challenging, but it will be suitable for large soft tissue defects of limbs in the future.

Peripheral lymphedema represents a debilitating condition affecting the lymphatic system of the limbs resulting from impaired drainage and excessive lymphatic fluid accumulation in the interstitial spaces. Lymphoscintigraphy is the imaging modality of first choice to investigate patients with peripheral lymphedema. Nevertheless, in recent times, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques have also been applied to assess patients with lymphedema.
The present systematic review aims to appraise the evidence by providing a head-to-head comparison between lymphoscintigraphy and MRI techniques in peripheral lymphedema.
A systematic literature search was performed using the PubMed database and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL). The eligibility criteria for the articles to be included in the qualitative synthesis were: 1) a study cohort or a subset of patients with a clinical diagnosis of peripheral lymphedema (either upper or lower limb); 2) execution of both MR imaging and lymphoscintigraphy in the same subset of patients. The methodological quality of the studies was assessed by an investigator using the \"Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies\" tool, v. 2 (QUADAS-2).
Overall, 11 studies were ultimately included in the quantitative analysis. No meta-analysis was performed due to the heterogeneous patient samples, the different study aims of the retrieved literature, and the limited number of available articles. In the diagnosis of upper limb extremity lymphedema, the sensitivity of MRI techniques appears superior to that of lymphoscintigraphy. Comparative studies in the lower limbs are still scarce but suggest that MRI may increase the diagnostic accuracy for lymphedema.
The available literature on patients with lymphedema evaluated with both lymphoscintigraphy and MRI does not allow definite conclusions on the superiority of one imaging technique over the other. Further studies, including well-selected patient samples, are still necessary to compare the accuracy of these imaging modalities. Since MRI techniques seem to provide complementary findings to lymphoscintigraphy, it would be conceivable to acquire both imaging exams in patients with peripheral lymphedema. Furthermore, studies evaluating the clinical impact of adding MRl to the diagnostic workup are warranted.