Grants We Funded
Grant applicants for the 2023 cycle requested a total of nearly $4 million dollars. The PSF Study Section Subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated nearly 140 grant applications on the following topics:
The PSF awarded research grants totaling over $1 million dollars to support nearly 30 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.
Quantitative Analysis of Radiation Induced Injury to the Mandible
Alero Fregene MD
2008
University of Michigan
Basic Research Grant
Cranio/Maxillofacial/Head and Neck
The use of Mandibular Distraction Osteogenesis (MDO) as a reconstructive option for deformations secondary to irradiated bone could have immense therapeutic ramifications. Currently free tissue transfer is the preferred reconstructive option. These complex operations entail attendant complications that can often lead to delays in initiation of therapy jeopardizing prognosis as well as quality of life.(Hidalgo) MDO generates replacement of deficient tissue from local substrate and therefore would seemingly be an attractive alternative to the use of free tissue transfer. Radiation drastically impairs bone healing, however potentially precluding the utilization of MDO as a durable reconstructive method for head and neck cancer. Although a small number of anecdotal clinical cases have been reported utilizing MDO following XRT (Raghoebar, Taub) the results have been mixed, lacking objective measures of analysis to critically determine outcomes. The main goal of this proposal is to analyze the injury in the adult mandible following radiation, using micro-CT and histology, in a rat model. Several studies have described that radiation injury may cause minimal increases in bone mineral density (BMD) (Chen, Marguiles). This puzzling increase is at odds with the myriad of bony morbidities reported after radiation, such as pathologic fractures, non-union, and osteoradionecrosis (Brown, Marx). Our hypothesis is that although radiation injury induces increased BMD, the new bone formed is of less quality. Quantitative measure of this decrease in quality will allow us to both formulate therapeutic interventions and to measure outcomes in order to enhance DO, potentially allowing clinical use in the future.