A Novel Design of V-shaped Radial Forearm Free Flap Facilitates the Direct Closure of Donor Site Wound.

Abstract

The radial forearm free flap (RFFF) is one of the commonly used flaps in the repair of head and neck soft tissue defects, especially small and medium-sized defects. The free skin grafts from abdomen are usually used to repair the RFFF donor site wound. This study aims to design a novel V-shaped RFFF, hoping that it might facilitate the direct closure of the forearm donor site wound. From August to December in 2019, 20 patients with oral cancers received radical surgeries, and V-shaped RFFFs were designed to repair the soft defects and the forearm donor site wound was directly closed. The patients were followed up for 6 months to assess the final outcome of repair. The results showed that the pre-designed V-shaped RFFF met the needs of soft tissue defect repair, with the size ranging from 24 cm2 to 30 cm2. Fifteen patients with tongue cancers and four with buccal cancers had satisfactory repair results, and only one patient with buccal cancer had mild limitation of mouth opening. There were 3 patients with a small area of ischemia. The mean postoperative hospital stay was 13.85 ± 1.09 days. In 5 patients, wrist tilt motility decreased compared with that before surgery. The postoperative influence score of wrist exercise on daily life was 2.75 ± 0.44 points. In conclusion, the V-shaped RFFF can meet the needs of small and medium-sized defect repair. This novel design can directly close the forearm donor site wound, which avoids surgical trauma to secondary donor site, and significantly reduces related complications.