• 제목/요약/키워드: hanging pedicle

검색결과 1건 처리시간 0.014초

Extracorporeal Pedicles for Free Flap Reconstruction in Diabetic Lower Extremity Wounds

  • Alejandro R. Gimenez;Daniel Lazo;Salomao Chade;Alex Fioravanti;Olimpio Colicchio;Daniel Alvarez;Ernani Junior;Sarth Raj;Amjed Abu-Ghname;Marco Maricevich
    • Archives of Plastic Surgery
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    • 제49권6호
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    • pp.782-784
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    • 2022
  • Diabetic foot ulcers are a severe complication of diabetes, and their management requires a multidisciplinary approach for optimal management. When treating these ulcers, limb salvage remains the ultimate goal. In this article, we present the "hanging" free flap for the reconstruction of chronic lower extremity diabetic ulcers. This two-staged approach involves standard free flap harvest and inset; however, following inset the "hanging" pedicle is covered within a skin graft instead of making extraneous incisions within the undisturbed soft tissues or tunnels that can compress the vessels. After incorporation, a second-stage surgery is performed in 4 to 6 weeks which entails pedicle division, flap inset revision, and end-to-end reconstruction of the recipient vessel. Besides decreasing the number of incisions on diabetic patients, our novel technique utilizing the "hanging" pedicle simplifies flap monitoring and inset and allows reconstruction of recipient vessels to reestablish distal blood flow.