[Digestive flaps and facial microsurgery].

Abstract

Abdominal wall and contents can be used out of the coeliac cavity, as tissues donors site, for filling up or covering defects. Microsurgical technology mastery can extend their use in all the human body parts, especially in the craniofacial area. More than 110 digestive free transplants have been used during a 8 year period in head and neck surgical repairs. The report shows how to exploit at their best the anatomical and physiological properties of diverse abdominal tissues. Beyond this, the possible association of these transplants with other repair techniques opens new therapeutical perspectives, such as chimerical flaps whose pedicle distributes to heterogenous (or heteroclite) components, double flaps with a single or a double pedicle, replacing, at one single operative time, each missing tissue by the most adequate transplant. In consideration of this, abdominal tissues are an inexhaustible source of transplants, even through some imperfections must be managed.