Iain S. Whitaker

Importancia para la hirudoterapia

Iain Whitaker (Swansea, Wales) is among the most-cited contemporary contributors to the evidence base for medicinal leech use in microsurgery. His 2012 systematic review in Microsurgery searched PubMed, the Cochrane Library and the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination for 1966-2009, retrieved 461 articles and pooled 277 reported clinical cases from the 67 papers that met inclusion: the overall reported success rate was 77.98% (216/277), with blood transfusion required in 49.75% of cases, antibiotics given in 79.05% and concomitant anticoagulation in 54.29%. The review's lasting value is that it made a scattered case-series literature countable - and stated plainly that it is case-series evidence, not controlled-trial evidence. His group's earlier work documented the practical risks. A four-year single-unit series (July 2004-2008, N=35; Microsurgery, 2011) reported blood transfusion in 34% of cases and an infection rate of 20% (7/35), including five Aeromonas infections. A 2009 survey of plastic surgery units in the United Kingdom and Ireland found that 24% used no antibiotic prophylaxis during leech therapy and 57% of those who did chose potentially inappropriate agents. A 2011 systematic review of chemical and mechanical alternatives to leeches (25 studies appraised, 12 methodologically robust) completed the picture. Whitaker also publishes on the history of plastic surgery, including a 2007 Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery account of nasal reconstruction from the Edwin Smith Papyrus onward. ASH cites his reviews as the reference point for what the flap-salvage literature does and does not show.