When bulk is needed for a better contour a free flap is used, or as shown in the pictures, a regional flap.
12.
This ranges from very simple techniques such as primary closure and dressings to more complex skin grafts, tissue expansion and free flaps.
13.
Free flaps are the first choice in case of complex, composite, and through-through cheek defects with exposed bone, sinuses, orbit or dura.
14.
Plastic surgeons may use either the left or right internal thoracic arteries for autologous free flap reconstruction of the breast after mastectomy.
15.
One M . D . Anderson nurse calls this free flap operation " the Cadillac of breast reconstruction, " providing a softer, more realistic breast.
16.
The department grew to accommodate burns, hand surgery and leprosy surgery under separate sections and it was here, Antia performed the first microvascular free flap surgery.
17.
Various types of tissue may be transferred as a " free flap " including skin and fat, muscle, nerve, bone, cartilage ( or any combination of these ), lymph nodes and intestinal segments.
18.
An example of " free flap " could be a " free toe transfer " in which the great toe or the second toe is transferred to the hand to reconstruct a thumb.
19.
Before the invention of the free flap, only local tissue adjacent to the defect could be harvested for use, as the blood supply was a vital determining factor in the survival of the flap.
20.
The devastation required a procedure known as a free flap, where surgeons take healthy flesh and skin from elsewhere on the body and connect it, nerve by nerve, vein by vein, to the damaged area.
