Enrico Martin

192 Chapter 8 Results After removal of duplicates, a total of 2902 citations were identified in PubMed and Embase databases. 736 potentially relevant articles were selected through title/ abstract screening, of which 14 studies remained for qualitative synthesis after full- text screening ( Figure 1 ). Records identified through database searching (n = 3680) Screening Included Eligibility Identification Additional records identified through additional sources (n = 1) Records after duplicates removed (n = 2892) Records screened on title and abstract (n = 2892) Records excluded (n = 2056) Full text articles assessed for eligibility (n = 736) Full-text articles excluded, with reasons (n = 722) - No full text (146) - Language other than English, Dutch, French, or German (2) - No functional reconstruction (379) - No STS (distinction) (61) - Case report (62) - Review (64) - No human study (1) - No functional outcome measure (7) Articles included (n = 14) Figure 1 Flowchart depicting study selection Study characteristics and multimodal treatment All studies were small retrospective cohort studies or case series describing a total of 134 patients with any form of functional reconstruction after extremity STS resection ( Table 1 ). Of all reconstructions 26 % were performed in the upper extremity and 74.9% in the lower extremity, which is in line with the anatomical distribution of sarcomas. Reconstructions were generally performed if loss of a major muscle was anticipated or present due to large or complete muscle group resection, tendon resection, or major nerve resection. Free functioning muscle transfers were used in 41.0% of all cases,