What is a free fibula flap?
A fibular free flap is one way of filling a bony hole in either the upper or lower jaw. It is one of the common ways of replacing bone that has been removed for cancer treatment.
What is microvascular free flap surgery?
Microvascular surgery is a technique of sewing two small blood vessels together under a microscope. The surgeon has to select tissue in the body that will do the best job of restoring the function and the appearance of head and neck tissues destroyed by the tumor.
What is a fibular transfer?
Fibular transfer is a salvage procedure and an alternative to ablation in cases of severe bone loss with infection and scarring. It should be reserved for difficult cases with extensive defects where conventional bone grafting is not possible.
What is a free Osteocutaneous flap?
The free osteocutaneous fibula flap is an established method of reconstruction of maxillary and mandibular defects. The vascularity of the skeletal and the cutaneous components is provided by the peroneal artery via the nutrient artery and the septo- and musculocutaneous perforators.
How long does a free flap take to heal?
The donor area of partial thickness skin grafts usually takes about 2 weeks to heal. For full thickness skin grafts, the donor area only takes about 5 to 10 days to heal, because it’s usually quite small and closed with stitches.
How long does a free flap surgery take?
Your head and neck surgeon will remove the tumor from your jaw and the soft tissue around it. At the same time, your plastic surgeon will remove the bone, tissue, and skin from your donor site. This will take 3 to 4 hours.
What is fibular grafting?
Figure 1: During free vascularized fibular graft surgery, a section of fibular bone with attached artery and veins is harvested and transferred to the femoral head, which has been cored out to remove necrotic bone. The vessels in the fibula graft are then microsurgically anastamosed to donor vessels at the hip.
What is a myocutaneous flap?
Myocutaneous flaps are compound flaps with a solitary vascular supply incorporating skin, subcutaneous tissue, fascia, and the underlying muscle. Once a pedicled or free-tissue transfer is performed, the newly transferred flap begins to incorporate into the surrounding tissue.
How is the fibula flap used in plastic surgery?
The fibula flap is harvested as a bone flap and may include regional musculature (soleus or flexor hallucis longus), and/or overlying skin. Provides vascularized bone that is suitable in cases of recipient site wound contamination, scarring, radiation, or infected bone cases following debridement.
Can a muscle segment be harvested with the fibula flap?
Although a muscle segment can be harvested with this flap, there are no indications for harvesting a functional muscle with this flap. The fibula flap is harvested as a bone flap and may include regional musculature (soleus or flexor hallucis longus), and/or overlying skin.
Which is the best bone for a fibula flap?
A long segment of straight, triangular, high-density cortical bone (20–26 cm in adults) may be harvested, which is capable of bridging long osseous defects and resisting angular and rotational stresses, considered ideal for extremity axial skeleton reconstruction.
Can a bone flap be used on the left leg?
The right leg or the left leg can be used as a source for the fibula flap. When a bone flap is required without the skin, there is no preference of one over the other as far as the recipient site is concerned.