Reconstruction of foot defects using free flaps

ABSTRACT

Reconstruction of foot defects has remained one of the difficult areas in plastic surgery. Many surgical methods were used for different defects. Microvascular tissue transfer probably provided a solution to many problems. The outcome had not been satisfying in the beginning, marked improvement has occurred in the past decade. In this study, eleven patients with varying foot defects were managed by free flap transfer, the latissimus dorsi muscle flap was used in four patients, the rectus abdominus muscle flap in fur patients, the lateral arm flap in one patient, the lateral intercostals flap in another patient and the latissimus dorsi musclocutaneous flap in a single patients. All muscle flaps completely survived, two failures occurred the lateral arm flap and the latissimus dorsi musculocutaneous. Flap. The results improved with the use of muscle flaps and with proper preoperative evaluation of the vascular status at the recipient area. The use of muscle flap covered by split thickness skin graft can withstand significant weight breading even without any sort of neurotization and absence of any cutaneous sensation