Commentary on "The selection of the most appropriate materials and the timing of procedures for dura, bone and skin reconstruction in patients with wartime head injuries," by Vujotic et al.

Excerpt

The authors report a wealth of clinical experience in war-related craniofacial injuries. Their originality, which is obvious to a civilian reader, is considerable, and the size of the series is large, for both of which reasons the research needs to be reported. Primarily, I would stress the admirable performance of the authors in gathering their surgical experience, which took place, as one can imagine, under hostile conditions, not only from a technical point of view, as well as under the psychological constraints that war entails. The public hospital restrictions that often annoy us in the West under peacetime conditions pale into insignificance compared to the difficulties that the emergency team faced on a day-to-day basis. In the light of this, their good results must be considered as a major achievement. Secondly, the scientific results of their study are not surprising to me, since I have always considered, as I was taught, that autologous material, when usable, is better. However, I do consider that research on biomaterials should continue, because we all know that in some instances, we cannot avoid their use. …