The presentation of plastic surgery visual data from 1816 to 1916: The evolution of reproducible results.

All scientific data should be presented with sufficient accuracy and precision so that they can be both analyzed properly and reproduced. Visual data are the foundation upon which plastic surgeons advance knowledge. We use visual data to achieve reproducible results by discerning details of procedures and differences between pre- and post-surgery images. This review highlights how the presentation of visual data evolved from 1816, when Joseph Carpue published his book on nasal reconstruction to 1916, when Captain Harold Gillies began to treat over 2000 casualties from the Battle of the Somme. It shows the frailties of human nature that led some authors such as Carl von Graefe, Joseph Pancoast and Thomas Mutter to record inaccurate methods or results that could not be reproduced, and what measures other authors such as Eduard Zeis, Johann Dieffenbach, and Gurdon Buck took to affirm the accuracy of their results. It shows how photography gradually supplanted illustration as a reference standard. Finally, it shows the efforts that some authors and originators took to authenticate and preserve their visual data in what can be considered the forerunners of clinical registries.

Laboratory animal research published in plastic surgery journals in 2014 has extensive waste: A systematic review.

UNLABELLED: Laboratory animal research must be designed in a manner that minimizes bias if it is to yield valid and reproducible results. In 2009, a survey that examined 271 animal studies found that 87% did not use randomization and 86% did not use blinding. This has been called "research waste" because it wasted time and resources. This systematic review measured the quantity of research waste in plastic surgery journals in 2014. METHOD: The PRISMA-P protocol was used. SCOPUS and PubMed searches were done for all animal studies published in 2014 in Aesthetic Plast Surg, Aesthet Surg J, Ann Plast Surg, JPRAS, J Plast Surg Hand Surg and Plast Reconstr Surg. These were supplemented by manual searches of the 2014 issues not indexed. Articles were analyzed for descriptions of randomization, randomization methodology, allocation concealment, and blinding of the primary outcome assessment. Corresponding authors who mentioned randomization without elaborating were emailed for details. RESULTS: 112 of 154 articles met the inclusion criteria. Only 24/112 (21.4%) had blinding of the primary outcome measure, 28/110 (25.5%) of articles that required randomization mentioned it. While 12/28 articles clearly described randomizing the intervention, only 4/28 described the method of randomization, and 2/28 mentioned allocation concealment. Only two authors responded and described the randomization methodology. CONCLUSION: The quality of plastic surgery laboratory animal research published in 2014 was poor. Use of the National Centre for the Replacement Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research's "Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments" (ARRIVE) Guidelines by authors, and enforcement of them by editors and reviewers could improve research quality and reduce waste.

Joseph Constantine Carpue and the Bicentennial of the Birth of Modern Plastic Surgery.

September 2014 marked the bicentennial of the birth of modern plastic surgery. It was then that Carpue began a prospective observational study of nasal reconstruction that culminated in his 1816 monograph, which caused an explosion of interest in reconstructive surgery throughout Europe. In conducting his study, Carpue demonstrated ethical standards and the power of planning a procedure. His methods to document his results accurately would remain unsurpassed until photography was adopted at the end of the 19th century. Carpue took an apocryphal story of surgery performed in India more than twenty years earlier and transformed it into the beginning of modern plastic surgery. He succeeded in a number of unrecognized tasks that are themselves landmarks not only in plastic surgical history, but surgical history: devising the first prospective observational study, using exclusion criteria, maintaining appropriate patient confidentiality, setting a standard for preoperative disclosure and ethical approval over a century before these measures were codified, having independent documentation of his preoperative and postoperative findings, devising a method to objectively monitor and document the forehead flap, and describing the potential value of tissue expansion. He shared his experience by publishing his results and by lecturing in Europe. His contemporaries recognized him for his contributions and he was honored by election to the Royal Society. Carpue launched the modern era of plastic surgery in an ethical, logical, and objective manner. While plastic surgery has changed in the last two centuries, the principles that Carpue followed remain valid.

Joseph Carpue's file drawer experiment - A murder mystery from 1801.

Today unpublished or "file drawer" experiments are the impetus for trial registration and reporting of all results. In 1801, Joseph Carpue, the father of modern plastic surgery, did a file drawer experiment for Benjamin West, who was President of the Royal Academy of Arts. George III had commissioned West to create the largest stained glass window ever created whose theme, the Crucifixion, was based upon Michelangelo's drawing. Subsequently, West suffered a series of political, professional and economic setbacks. In the summer of 1801, West's project was delayed. By the fall, West hoped that independent scientific confirmation of his design could salvage the project. West approached Carpue who obtained a murderer's fresh corpse that he crucified and documented the results with plaster casts created by sculptor Thomas Banks. Carpue's experiment showed that West's window design wrongly depicted the Crucifixion because West had posed the hands and shoulders incorrectly. West died in 1820 without ever being associated with Carpue's experiment. Carpue's obituary in The Lancet in 1846 contained Carpue's handwritten note that described the experiment but not West's Royal commission. As no records or publications associate the cast with West project, this can be considered to be a file drawer experiment. After 1801, West made further drawings of the Crucifixion that showed the figures in the same position as the cast. Nineteenth century auction catalogues suggest that West made a corrected Crucifixion painting, but its current location remains a mystery.