Skin flap surgery is the removal of a healthy piece of skin from one region of your body to replace skin that has been damaged or is absent in another area of your body. A flap is a piece of skin with various amounts of underlying tissue used to conceal a defect. It gets the blood supply from somewhere other than the tissue it is attached to. Skin, fat, and muscle can all be found in a skin flap.

The tissue defect is substituted with a similar tissue from the defect’s immediate or distant site, known as the donor site. The flaps can be used to reconstruct the majority of small-to-medium-sized defects of the hand’s fingers, thumb, and dorsum. This is done with minimal donor site morbidity and excellent functional results.

Some of the characteristics of the procedure include:

• A skin flap is frequently joined to a blood artery and linked to its original place at one end.
• Sometimes a blood artery is surgically disconnected, and a flap is relocated to a new location. It’s referred to as a free flap.

After surgery, you will have two wounds: one at the donor site and one at the graft or flap. Due to recently exposed nerve endings, the donor site is frequently more painful than the wound following surgery.

 Classification of Flaps

Skin flaps can be categorised based on how they are transferred (advancement, rotation, and transposition), what tissues they are made of (cutaneous, fasciocutaneous, fascial, adipofascial, or complex flaps with bone and/or tendon), and their geometric shape (rhomboid, bilobed). They may be divided into two categories of flaps if only their location with respect to the defect is considered.

 Local

A local flap is just adjacent to the flaw. A local flap comprises skin and subcutaneous tissue taken from a location close to a specific defect while keeping its natural blood supply. Local skin flaps can be employed as a dependable source of soft tissue replacement.

A local flap is created when your surgeon transfers tissue from the donor site, to the surgical site that has to be covered, referred to as the recipient site. Different body parts can be rebuilt using local flaps. These include the head, neck, breast region, arms, legs, buttocks, lower back, or vagina. A local flap keeps the utilised tissue connected to the body and allows it to continue drawing blood from it. The flap is split off from its starting point at the other end. To conceal the surgical site, this end can be twisted. In addition, extra skin may be removed from another location, often the thigh, if it is necessary to conceal the surgical site.

 Distant

A distant flap is a long way from the flaw, at a position far from a skin defect. It’s a process with two stages in which the skin of the flaw on the limb is sutured to the body wall with the help of a hinge or pouch flap. The flap is fastened to the body wall in a non-weight-bearing position for three weeks, and the flap is then released to close the remaining skin defect on the limb.

Direct flaps and indirect flaps are subcategories of distant flaps. Direct flaps are now considered for troublesome extremity wounds when other flaps and grafting procedures are impractical or where the location and size of the lesion make them difficult to employ. Nearly all indirect flaps have a tubed-flap design. Following a delay process, a bipedicle flap is stitched inside a tube before being transferred to the recipient bed.

From where is a Skin Flap extracted?

A skin flap can be removed from any location of the body. However, it is often removed from a region with loose skin. The skin flap can also be excised from the same region as the wound. Additionally, it could come from a separate area of the body that is distant from the wound. Skin flaps should appear the same as the location where they will be applied. When selecting a donor location, medical professionals will consider the skin tone, texture (smoothness), hair growth, and thickness.

Treatment at Apollo Hospitals, Karnataka

Our team of experts at Apollo Hospitals, Karnataka, use the latest technology to perform flap surgery. We have expert doctors and cutting-edge technology under one roof to ensure superior care to patients. We enable our patients to live healthy and fruitful lives, despite the challenges they face. We provide world-class patient care and hospital experience when it comes to surgery. Visit Apollo Hospitals, Karnataka, and consult our specialists today.