title: Harvest technique for pedicled transposition of latissimus dorsi muscle: an old trade revisited.
abstract: Transposition of extrathoracic muscle flaps has been the cornerstone of treatment of a number of complex intrathoracic pathologies such as bronchopleural fistulas and residual infected pleural spaces. We present a simple step-wise technique for preservation and harvesting of the most common muscle flap employed by thoracic surgeons, namely latissimus dorsi, just prior to performing a standard posterolateral thoracotomy. Since 2004, we have successfully utilized pedicled latissimus muscle as our preferred prophylactic flap against development of postoperative bronchopleural fistulas or recurrent empyemas. This technique should be part of every thoracic surgeon's surgical armamentarium.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Irvine, Medical Center, Department of Surgery, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Orange, CA 92868-3298, United States. aabolhod@uci.edu
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Abolhoda
authors.forename: Garrett A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Wirth
authors.forename: Trung D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Bui
authors.forename: Jeffrey C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Milliken
mesh_terms: D001983:Bronchial Fistula / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000601:surgery*; D010995:Pleural Diseases / Q000601:surgery; D013524:Surgical Flaps; D020858:Tissue and Organ Harvesting / Q000379:methods*