Discussion. Free tissue transfer for lower extremity reconstruction: a study of the role of computed angiography in the planning of free tissue transfer in the posttraumatic setting.

摘要

The article by Duymaz and associates will in all likelihood change the evaluation of the vascular system after traumatic injury to the leg. Computed tomographic angiography can obtain important information about the vascular tree without the 1 to 3 percent chance of hematoma, pseudoaneurysm, dissection, or other vessel injury associated with arterial puncture in the groin. The test uses less radiation than does an arteriogram, has been shown in other studies to be both sensitive and specific for vascular lesions, and costs less to the medical system. Analogous to the shift away from pulmonary arteriograms toward spiral computed tomographic studies to evaluate pulmonary thromboembolism, it is likely that computed tomographic angiography will displace arte-riography in the evaluation of the lower extremity vascular tree. The authors demonstrate its utility in this clinical setting.