Content of review 1, reviewed on October 06, 2020

The overall strength of the article : In General the described technique is easy, non-time consuming, doesn't need advanced facilities and expertise and little or absent donor site Morbidity. -The points that are needed to be clarified : The study design is not clear but its mostly retrospective On which criteria the author depended on to exclude infection and start reconstruction, in other word, did the authors request any lab test or any diagnostic tool ( ESR, CRP for example) to make sure that there is no residual infection after external fixator removal? *In average, after how much time the patients started weight bearing, and whats the exact meaning of restricted weight bearing (walker? , double crutches? , partial or complete non weight bearing?) * Did the patients need any protected weight bearing for the donor site if contralateral fibula was used * The authors didn't mentioned any details about the soft tissue status, is there any associated soft tissue defect or the defect was isolated bone defect?

The weak points in the article : little number of cases Retrospective design of study Suggestion for future projects: Larger number of cases comparative study with other options of bone defects reconstruction(FVFG, bone transport or induced membrane technique)

Source

    © 2020 the Reviewer.

References

    Lin, K., Tarng, Y., Hsu, C., Renn, J. 2013. Free non-vascularized fibular strut bone graft for treatment of post-traumatic lower extremity large bone loss. European Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery & Traumatology, 24(4): 599.