A clinical audit on the effect of suction drainage on microvascular anastomosis

Introduction: There are reports that thrombosis in microsurgically anastomo sed vessels occurred after the vessels were drawn into the suction drains. Aim: To study the effects of suction drainage on microvascular anastomosis. Patients and methods: The authors compared the proportion of complications in 77 patients who had suction drainage (n=45) or no suction drainage (n=3 2) with microvascular free flap surgery in the head and neck region. Ultras onography and Doppler flow ultrasonography were performed on five more pati ents 3 days after the operation. Results: There were no significant differe nces between the two retrospectively evaluated groups for incidence of post operative complications. Ultrasound in the prospective study group revealed that vessels were neither sucked into the suction drain nor displaced towa rds the drain. Conclusion: These findings contravened the reports of vessel s being sucked into drains and therefore the clinical use of suction draina ge in conjunction with microsurgery in the head and neck region is still ad vocated. (C) 2001 European Association for Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery.