Telescoping Vascularized Fibular Graft: A New Method

The journal has been informed about a problem with priority concerning the above article in the Journal of Reconstructive Microsurgery, volume 19, number 1, pp. 11-16. The procedure reported by the authors from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan, was carried out in a 1999 case. The report did not acknowledge a publication concerning a fairly identical procedure from a group at the Microsurgery Unit, Assuit University School of Medicine, Assuit, Egypt (El-Gammal, El-Sayed, and Kotb). This latter group of authors presented their earlier experiences, dating from 1996, in an abstract from the Inaugural Congress of the World Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery (WSRM) (published as an extensive article, “Telescoping Vascularized Fibular Graft: A New Method for Treatment of Congenital Tibial Pseadarthrosis with Severe Shortening,” in the proceedings of the WSRM meeting [2001], as well as in the complete set of abstracts published in our journal in May 2002). We did not identify this discrepancy because the published abstract did not appear in the usual databases. We urge authors of interesting and important abstracts at international meetings to submit their findings to peer-reviewed journals for consideration; a published article will serve well to establish priority. Neither our journal nor the Japanese authors kept track of what appeared either in the WSRM proceedings or in the published set of abstracts. However, after checking the history of the telescoping vascularized fibular graft procedure, it is apparent that the Egyptian group deserves priority. The journal apologizes for this oversight.