Lower Extremity Limb Salvage, Functional Restoration, and Regenerative Surgery-Lessons Learned Across Recent Military Conflicts.

Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery originated from surgical specialists who evolved techniques to improve the treatments for patients who suffered devastating war-related injuries. Furthermore, additional refinements and advancements in plastic and reconstructive surgical techniques tend to parallel advancing military weaponry which has expanded injury patterns suffered by those injured in war. The evolution of combat munitions, coupled with enhanced military and civilian trauma care abilities, has lead to an increase not only in the proportion of military personnel and enemy combatants who survive devastating combat-related extremity injuries, but also in civilian casualties exposed to frontline conflict.