Objective To investigate the benefits and drawbacks of breast reconstruction with endoscopic-assisted harvesting of the latissimus dorsi muscle flap for breast cancer and treatment experience of postoperative operation-related complications. Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on clinical data of 26 female patients with breast cancer who met the selection criteria between September 2021 and March 2023 aging 48.7 years (range, 26-69 years). All tumors were unilateral, with 17 on the left side and 9 on the right side. The tumor size ranged from 1.0 to 7.0 cm, with an average of 2.7 cm. The pathological staging included T1 in 11 cases, T2 in 14 cases, and T3 in 1 case; N0 in 10 cases, N1 in 11 cases, N2 in 2 cases, and N3 in 3 cases; no distant metastasis (M0) occurred when first diagnosed. Among them, 10 cases underwent breast conserving surgery, and 16 cases underwent nipple-sparing mastectomy. All patients underwent breast reconstruction with endoscopic-assisted harvesting of the latissimus dorsi muscle flap. The operation time, incision length, and postoperative drainage volume in 3 days were recorded. Breast-Q “Satisfaction with back” scale was conducted to evaluate patients’ satisfaction with back at 6 months after operation. Results The operation time was 280-480 minutes (mean, 376.7 minutes), the incision length was 10-15 cm (mean, 12.2 cm), the postoperative drainage volume in 3 days was 500-1 600 mL (mean, 930.2 mL). There were 4 cases of postoperative seroma, 1 case of incision rupture, 1 case of paresthesia of the thoracic wall, and 1 case of edema of the ipsilateral upper limb. All patients were followed up 12-30 months (mean, 20.1 months). No latissimus dorsi muscle flap necrosis, latissimus dorsi muscle atrophy, or shoulder joint dysfunction occurred during follow-up; 2 patients had recurrence of lymph nodes in the ipsilateral axilla after operation, but no distant metastasis occurred. Breast-Q score at 6 months after operation was 64-100 (mean, 79.5). The average score was 78.6 (range, 64-100) in patients underwent nipple-sparing mastectomy and 81.0 (range, 78-100) in patients underwent breast conserving surgery. Conclusion Breast reconstruction with endoscopic-assisted harvesting of the latissimus dorsi muscle flap for breast cancer is proven to be a surgical approach with safety and cosmetic effects with mild postoperative operation-related complications and considerable patient satisfaction.
In the formulation of the clinical question of traditional Chinese medicine clinical practice guidelines, even if the intervention elements (intervention or control) have an appropriate scope, guideline developers are still faced with a variety of interventions. By analyzing the difficulty and necessity of priority selection of intervention interventions, we propose the approach of extending expert evidence to the process of priority selection of intervention interventions, and further provide the methodology of expert evidence data collection table design, application, data presentation and expert decision-making method to provide references and guidance for guideline developers.
Clinical practice guidelines will be incorporated in different evidence sources and evidence types, the research and exploration of multiple sources of evidence at China and foreign, this paper advocates the construction of both characteristics of multi-source evidence of traditional Chinese medicine, by combing 70 guide manuals, analyze the necessity and advantages of multi-source evidence construction, and further from the multi-source evidence source and evidence logic theory interpretation and application, in order to provide methodological references for the formulation of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines of traditional Chinese medicine.
Currently, the recommendations of the clinical practice guidelines related to acupuncture in China and abroad are opaque to the source of the acupuncture prescription, there is a lack of comprehensive evaluation of the rationality of the acupuncture prescription, and the standards for the selection of the acupuncture prescription are opaque and nonstandard, and the writing and reporting details are insufficient, thus affecting the clinical applicability of the guidelines. To a certain extent, the utilization rate of the recommendations of the guidelines is low. This paper discusses the origin, rationality comprehensive evaluation, priority selection, writing and reporting of acupuncture prescriptions, and puts forward detailed methodological suggestions, to provide guidance makers of methodological optimization thoughts and suggestions for the evaluation, selection and writing of acupuncture prescriptions in the recommendations.
When prioritizing clinical questions in the development of the clinical practice guidelines, clinical questions with high recognition and low variability, or high score and less disagreement among experts were often prioritized, while questions with high recognition but high variability were excluded. By this approach, clinical questions with practical value but also showed high variability due to different causes were not accepted as priorities. There were some methodological and clinical limitations by doing so. By summarizing the causes and connotations of expert opinion variability in terms of clinical experience, expertise and values, this paper analyzed the advantages of the variability quantification application, and proposed corresponding methodological recommendations, so as to provide references for guideline developers in the priority selection of clinical questions.
In the process of formation of recommendations of clinical practice guidelines, experts have many difficult problems of lack of transparency and high subjectivity in making final decisions, such as incomplete comprehensive consideration of dimensions and great heterogeneity in the evaluation of importance between dimensions, etc. As a decision-making tool, multi-criterion decision analysis improves the decision-making level of recommendation by adding the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. By analyzing the challenges facing the formation of recommendations, this paper introduces the decision assistance of multi-criterion decision, and analyzes and summarizes the advantages and methods of the application of multi-criterion decision, so as to provide reference and guidance for guide makers to solve the difficulties in the formation of recommendations.
In the process of formulation, traditional Chinese medicine clinical practice guidelines are often faced with the dilemma of lack of evidence. Guidelines development groups tend to make final decisions based on expert experience or expert opinion, but the limitations of cognitive bias reduce the credibility and transparency of the guidelines. By clarifying the difference between the expert experience and expert opinion and expert evidence, the expert evidence of traditional Chinese medicine discipline advantages and necessity, providing the recommendation form link using expert evidence methodology design and implementation details, retaining the empirical characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine and improving the lack of evidence, has certain practical application value.
After the completion of a clinical trial, its conclusion generally depends on the results of statistical analysis of the main outcome, that is, whether the P-value in the hypothesis test is less than the α level of the hypothesis test, usually α=0.05. The size of the P-value indicates the sufficient degree of reason for making the hypothesis judgment, and can be interpreted as to determine whether a conclusion is statistically significant but does not involve the difference in the degree of drug effects or other effects. Fragility index, which is, the minimum number of patients required to change the occurrence of a target outcome event to a non-target outcome event from a statistically significant outcome to a non-significant outcome, can be used to assist in understanding of clinical trial statistical inference results and assisting in clinical decision making This paper discusses the concept, calculation method and clinical application of the fragility index, and recommends that the fragility index be routinely reported in all future randomized controlled trials to help patient clinicians and policymakers make appropriate and optimal decisions.