Systematic reviews versus narrative reviews in clinical anatomy: Methodological approaches in the era of evidence-based anatomy.

Two main types of review articles with distinct characteristics and goals are commonly found in the scientific literature: systematic reviews and narrative (also called expert or traditional) reviews. Narrative reviews are publications that describe and discuss the state of science on a specific topic or theme from a theoretical and contextual point of view with little explicit structure for gathering and presenting evidence. Systematic reviews are overviews of the literature undertaken by identifying, critically appraising and synthesizing the results of primary research studies using an explicit methodological approach. With the recent rise of evidence-based anatomy, important questions arise with respect to the utility of narrative reviews in clinical anatomy. The goal of this perspective article is to address the key differences between narrative and systematic reviews in the context of clinical anatomy, to provide guidance on which type of review is most appropriate for a specific issue, and to summarize how the two types of reviews can work in unison to enhance the quality of anatomical research and its delivery to clinicians and anatomists alike. Clin. Anat. 31:364-367, 2018. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

What did Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 980-1037A.D.) look like?

We present a reconstruction of Avicenna's face from the only photograph of his skull available today. The photograph is more than 50 years old, and was obtained during the exhumation of Avicenna's tomb in Hamadan for relocation. The reconstruction procedure was performed by the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee, UK. This is probably the first scholarly attempt to reconstruct Avicenna's face. Historians and clinicians who are interested in the history of medicine may find the current craniofacial analysis of Avicenna and the final output interesting and worth recording. The life, achievements and contributions of Avicenna to medical sciences and the influence of his "Canon" on Renaissance medicine are discussed.

The sub-peritoneal arterial plexus of Sir William Turner.

Sir William Turner (1832-1916) was Professor of Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh. His classic paper of 1863 on the anastomoses between the parietal and visceral branches of the abdominal aorta, later known as the sub-peritoneal arterial plexus of Turner, has mostly been forgotten. Located in the retroperitoneum and surrounding the kidneys and other adjacent structures, this plexus is an important route of collateral circulation. In the current paper, we discuss the sub-peritoneal arterial plexus as described by Turner in 1863 and review the literature concerning its potential clinical significance in the kidney, emphasizing its probable role in the metastatic spread of various tumors of abdominal organs and in the continuing viability of the kidney after renal artery occlusion. A biographical sketch of Sir William Turner is also presented.