Grants We 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.
Non-Contact Diffuse Optical Assessment of Mastectomy Skin Flaps
Lesley Wong MD
2015
University of Kentucky Research Foundation
National Endowment for Plastic Surgery Grant
Breast (Cosmetic / Reconstructive)
1 in 8 U.S. women will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of their lifetime. 35-40% of these women diagnosed annually with breast cancer will be treated with a total mastectomy. From 1998 to 2008, there were 178,603 mastectomies and 51,410 immediate breast reconstructions. The most common complication following prosthesis-based reconstruction is mastectomy skin flap necrosis, due to inadequate perfusion, with incidence rates as high as 10-20%. This can lead to infection, implant exposure and implant loss. There are currently no non-contact methods to simultaneously assess mastectomy skin flap blood flow and oxygenation. A new advanced technology, a non-contact diffuse correlation spectroscopy flow-oximeter, has been recently developed and validated for simultaneous measurement of tissue blood flow and oxygenation. This technology is portable, user friendly and inexpensive and can measure up to 1.5 cm tissue depth. Preliminary studies have shown this technology to be a valid, effective method for measurement of blood flow and oxygenation in local and free tissue transfers. Advantages over currently available technology are that it is non-invasive, can be used take measurements at multiple time points, simultaneously measures blood flow and oxygenation and can measure these parameters beyonf the surface. The goal of this study is to establish and validate the use of this non-contact technology in the prediction of mastectomy skin flap necrosis in both implant based and autologous reconstruction (Aim 1). The non-contact technology will be used to detect blood flow and tissue oxygenation in the breast skin pre-operatively, intraoperatively and post-operatively (Aim 2). The measurement of tissue hemodynamics in this manner will allow for the dynamic measurement of tissue ischemia, and intervention in both the pre-operative and intraoperative setting. Ultimately, this technology. This technology has the potential to further tailor and individualize breast reconstruction, based on pre-operative assessment of breast skin blood flow and oxygenation. Further, a reduction in complication rates leads less emotional burden to the patient, a decrease in the delay of oncologic management and has the potential to decrease the complication rate of immediate breast reconstruction, and its subsequent costs to the healthcare system.
Lesley Wong, MD, FACS is a faculty member in the Division of Plastic Surgery at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. She completed her general surgery residency at the New York University School of Medicine and her plastic surgery residency at the University of Maryland/Johns Hopkins University Combined Program in Plastic Surgery. She maintains a broad clinical practice in many aspects of plastic surgery with research interests in breast surgery and wound healing. This study involves a partnership with the University of Kentucky Department of Biomedical Engineering.