Anterolateral thigh harvesting for head and neck reconstruction without Doppler: Risky or not?

Background

Anterolateral thigh flap (ALT) is used as a workhorse flap for head and neck reconstruction. The most used method to map the perforators nowadays is hand-held Doppler although several more sophisticated techniques have been described. This paper is to investigate whether harvesting the ALT flap without preoperative mapping is safe.

Materials and methods

Twenty consecutive patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups: A or B. Patients of A group (n = 10) were marked before the operation with the use of a Doppler probe whilst patients of group B (n = 10) were not marked preoperatively using Doppler to detect the perforators. Complications and time of ALT dissection were documented.

Results

There was no statistical difference of complications between the two groups. Mean time of flap harvesting (skin incision up to main pedicle) was approximately 140 min in group A and 165 min in group B (statistically significantly less in group A p = 0.008).

Conclusions

This paper is an indication that harvesting the ALT flap without preoperative mapping, even with hand-held Doppler, does not compromise safety of the procedure although operative time is prolonged.