Skin paddle as an indicator of the viability of vascularised fibular graft.

INTRODUCTION

Immediate recognition of anastomotic failure is important to ensure the viability of the vascularised fibular graft. The problems associated with post-operative bone scanning and angiography for immediate detection of anastomotic failure have been described.

METHODS

We report the effectiveness of using a skin paddle as an indicator of the vascularised fibular graft viability in 13 cases which had undergone various types of long bone reconstruction using fasciocutaneous free vascularised fibular graft.

RESULTS

Early detection of anastomotic failure in 100 percent of the patients (4 out of 4) with 92 percent (12 out of 13 patients) success rate shows the effectiveness of this method.

CONCLUSION

The skin paddle offers the best method of post-operative monitoring of fibular graft viability.