Masuoka Takeshi
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Osaka City General Hospital, 2-13-22 Miyakojimahondori Miyakojima-ku, Osaka, Japan.
JPRAS Open. 2025 Aug 21;46:50-53. doi: 10.1016/j.jpra.2025.08.018. eCollection 2025 Dec.
Long-term follow-up is essential for assessing the efficacy of surgical methods in pediatric patients. However, cohort dropouts tend to increase over time. These losses to follow-up make it difficult to obtain reliable and convincing results. The aim of this article is to present an easily understandable graphical method for visualizing the postoperative course using a cohort of patients with congenital blepharoptosis.
Patients with congenital blepharoptosis who underwent frontalis suspension were retrospectively reviewed. The postoperative courses of all the patients were illustrated using two modified swimmer plots to depict reoperation events. One plot used postoperative years as the x-axis, while the other used patients' ages. Each horizontal bar represented an individual patient, with reoperations indicated by changes in color.
A total of 130 patients was included. The plot with postoperative years as the x-axis showed that most reoperations occurred >9 years after the initial surgery. The age-based plot showed that most secondary revision surgeries were performed between 10 and 20 years of age. The age distribution of reoperations followed an approximately sigmoidal curve, with a median age of 15.6 years. This distribution resembled the follow-up endpoints of patients who did not undergo reoperation.
A modified swimmer plot that includes all patients is a useful tool for visualizing longitudinal outcomes and identifying issues that may be overlooked with conventional analytical methods.
长期随访对于评估手术方法在儿科患者中的疗效至关重要。然而，随着时间的推移，队列失访率往往会增加。这些随访失访使得难以获得可靠且有说服力的结果。本文的目的是提出一种易于理解的图形方法，用于使用一组先天性上睑下垂患者来直观呈现术后病程。
对接受额肌悬吊术的先天性上睑下垂患者进行回顾性研究。使用两个改良的游泳者图来描述再次手术事件，以展示所有患者的术后病程。一个图以术后年份为x轴，另一个以患者年龄为x轴。每个水平条代表一名个体患者，再次手术通过颜色变化表示。
共纳入130例患者。以术后年份为x轴的图显示，大多数再次手术发生在初次手术后9年以上。基于年龄的图显示，大多数二次修复手术在10至20岁之间进行。再次手术的年龄分布呈近似S形曲线，中位年龄为15.6岁。这种分布与未接受再次手术患者的随访终点相似。
包含所有患者的改良游泳者图是直观呈现纵向结果以及识别传统分析方法可能忽略问题的有用工具。
