Flap perfusion mapping: TRAM flap after abdominal suction-assisted lipectomy

Abstract

This technique or its modification (using other dyes) may play a beneficial role in other clinical scenarios where the reconstructive plastic surgeon preoperatively needs to know the integrity of vessels that are too small to image using standard angiographic techniques. In addition, flap perfusion mapping can demonstrate the pattern of skin that is physiologically perfused by the intact vessels. Knowledge of the perfusion characteristics of the tissues to be transferred before surgery may, at the least, alter the design of the tissues to be transferred and, in the extreme case, could affect the nature of the operative choice altogether.