FACIAL RECONSTRUCTION WITH FREE-TISSUE TRANSFER

The article provides a retrospective review of 25 free-tissue transfer s for facial reconstruction on 24 recipient sites in 21 patients. The recipient sites of the face were classified into frontal (4 patients), orbital (2 patients), nasal (2 patients), buccal (11 patients), and o ral region (5 patients). The transferred flaps included 16 fasciocutan eous flaps (6 forearm flaps, 5 scapular flaps, 2 anteromedial thigh fl aps, 1 lateral arm flap, 1 dorsalis pedis flap, and 1 deltopectoral fl ap) and 8 myocutaneous flaps (6 latissimus dorsi myocutaneous flaps, 1 serratus anterior myocutaneous flap, 1 rectus abdominis myocutaneous flap, and 1 prefabricated flap). Thinning modifications such as the ex pansion, reduction, or extension techniques were performed in the myoc utaneous flap to avoid having a bulky flap. In our view, the flap from the trunk matches the facial skin color better than that from the ext remity. Satisfactory results were attained in all cases in which a com plete replacement of the facial aesthetic unit was performed.