Flap repair for vascular prosthesis exposure after artificial blood vessel bypass surgery for critical limb ischemia / 中华外科杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the effectiveness of flap repair for vascular prosthesis exposure after the artificial blood vessel bypass surgery for critical limb ischemia.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>From August 2007 to December 2011, bypass surgery with vascular prosthetic grafts were performed in 192 patients with critical limb ischemia.Five patients among them (2.6%) suffered from vascular prosthesis exposure 6 to 13 days after the previous surgery, including 4 males and 1 female, with a median age of 68 years(arranged from 52 to 81 years). The surgical managements included surgical debridement and local flap or transferred muscle-cutaneous flap repair to preserve the prosthetic vascular grafts. Three patients underwent Z-plasty with local flap repair, while 2 patients underwent transferred rectus abdominis or rectus femoris muscle flap repair of the wounds.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>After the surgery, prosthetic vascular graft was successfully preserved in 4 of the 5 cases with first intention healing. At a median follow-up of 38 months (arranged from 5 to 57 months), all the 4 limbs were salvaged with patent of the prosthetic grafts.One flap failed to heal and the prosthetic graft had to be removed due to infection and hemorrhage. An above-knee-amputation was performed due to severe limb ischemia.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The vascular prosthesis exposure is often a disaster after artificial blood vessel bypass surgery for critical limb ischemia.Local flap or transferred muscle-cutaneous flap repair is an effective surgical management to salvage the exposed graft and the affected limb.</p>