Grants Funded
Grant applicants for the 2024 cycle requested a total of nearly $3 million dollars. The PSF Study Section Subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated more than 100 grant applications on the following topics:
The PSF awarded research grants totaling over $650,000 dollars to support more than 20 plastic surgery research proposals.
ASPS/PSF leadership is committed to continuing to provide high levels of investigator-initiated research support to ensure that plastic surgeons have the needed research resources to be pioneers and innovators in advancing the practice of medicine.
Research Abstracts
Search The PSF database to have easy access to full-text grant abstracts from past PSF-funded research projects 2003 to present. All abstracts are the work of the Principal Investigators and were retrieved from their PSF grant applications. Several different filters may be applied to locate abstracts specific to a particular focus area or PSF funding mechanism.
Incorporating Three-Dimensional Visualization in Breast Reconstruction
Carrie Stern MD
2020
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK)
Research Fellowship
Breast (Cosmetic / Reconstructive)
Project Summary: Over the last decade, there has been a shift from physician-driven to patient-centered models, with patients more involved in the decision-making process about their care. This type of collaborative participation has been shown to increase trust, improve realistic perceptions of treatment expectations, and improve clinical and patient-reported outcomes. The first step in this process is providing patients with education and not merely information. Yet most of the education provided to women referred for breast reconstruction is not effective. This is supported by the fact that patient satisfaction with information on the BREAST-Q, a patient-reported outcome measure developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), is consistently low, compared with other domains. Three-dimensional (3D) interactive technology has been shown to be a valuable tool in patient education, particularly at the point of care, yet there remains paucity in the application of this type of educational tool in plastic surgery. Despite the benefits that incorporating this type of technology can have on patient education and the potential impact it can have on outcomes, to date there is no tool that has been developed to address this need. The proposed project will focus on using 3D technology to develop an interactive patient-specific tool to better educate our patients. Working closely with biomedical engineers, we will create an interactive 3D tool demonstrating one type of breast reconstruction, specifically abdominally based free flaps. We will then conduct a pilot study using the 3D interactive educational tool among a select group of patients. This project will serve as the foundation for patient-centered education going forward and the first step in building a 3D interactive procedural platform for breast reconstruction. Once the interactive 3D education tool is developed, we will conduct a randomized controlled trial to better define the impact the interactive 3D education tool has on patient satisfaction with information and how that affects clinical outcomes. Impact Statement: For most cancer survivors, the process of breast reconstruction is overwhelming. Most women referred for consultation are still struggling with their recent breast cancer diagnosis. For women who are pursuing risk-reducing surgery, that decision too comes with emotional burden. During initial consultation, women are typically bombarded with information on a myriad of surgical options that health professionals struggle to describe and patients struggle to understand because it requires three-dimensional (3D) understanding of the patient's own anatomy. Using 3D technology in the form of interactive procedure-specific animation during consultation provides a visual aid that empowers both the surgeon and patient to set expectations and make informed decisions about their reconstructive options
