TY - JOUR TI - CT-angiography prior to DIEP flap breast reconstruction: a systematic review and meta-analysis. AU - Teunis T AU - Heerma van Voss MR AU - Kon M AU - Macaré van Maurik JF AB - BACKGROUND: Preoperative CT-angiography (CTA) has shown to reduce operative time in deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flap breast reconstruction compared to Doppler ultrasonography (US). Although decreased flap loss has been suggested, statistical significant reduction remains indeterminate. The purpose of this review is to evaluate flap loss after preoperative CTA and Doppler US in DIEP-flap breast reconstruction. METHODS: A systematic literature search was performed in MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane libraries. All articles comparing CTA to Doppler US were selected and critically appraised; data on flap loss were extracted. RESULTS: From 678 studies, eight were selected for appraisal. Six case-control studies were included in the final analysis. Pooled analysis showed CTA resulted in a significant reduction in partial necrosis (odds ratio/OR 0.15; 95% confidence interval/CI 0.07-0.32, P < 0.0001) and decreased flap loss (OR 0.28; 95% CI 0.10-0.79, P = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: Studies included in this meta-analysis have several limitations. However, most studies find a large clinical advantage of CTA over Doppler US, which reaches statistical significance when combined. As results show that CTA prior to DIEP flap breast reconstruction offers significant clinical benefits, we suggest the routine use of preoperative CTA. LA - English T2 - Microsurgery VL - 33 SP - 496-502 IS - 6 SN - 1098-2752 PY - 2013 DA - 2013 DO - 10.1002/micr.22119 U1 - 23836386[pmid] DB - EPISTEMONIKOS UR - http://www.epistemonikos.org/documents/f9b0e3ee27bf6223e83e9af30ab9006c7cc10bef ER -