Microvascular reconstructive surgery of the face: preface.

摘要

Occasionally, the facial plastic reconstructive surgeon encounters a patient who has a composite defect that is not amenable to local tissue rearrangement. Whether the patient presents with such a large lesion that local tissues will not suffice for reconstructive purposes or the patient has been heavily pretreated by surgery or multiple surgical excisions with local flap reconstructions, tissue from outside of the head and neck area is required. The advent of microvascular reconstructive surgery has allowed for composite soft tissue defects to be reconstructed with similar composite tissues from other parts of the body. Initially, microvascular free tissue transfer was used for reconstruction of oncologic and ablative defects encountered in the upper aerodigestive tract. The ability to decrease the infection rate, get patients out of the hospital more quickly, decrease the morbidity, and increase the potential rehabilitation quickly saw these surgical techniques become the preferred method of reconstruction. With this burgeoning experience of free tissue transfer came an ability to use this method of reconstruction in complex composite reconstruction of cutaneous defects.