[Surgical therapy for massive deep skin and soft tissue injuries].
OBJECTIVE
To explore the methods of repair of massive deep skin and soft tissue injuries.


METHODS
Fifty-six patients with deep skin and soft tissue injuries were hospitalized from July 2006 to January 2008. Among them, 23 cases were caused by burn, 17 cases by electric injury, 7 cases by hot crush injury, 6 cases by avulsion injury, and 3 cases due to other reasons (including traffic accident, crush injury, soft tissue infection respectively). Sixty-five skin flaps were raised to repair and reconstruct the injured tissues, including 21 local flaps, 18 distant pedicled skin flaps, and 26 free skin flaps. The area of skin flaps ranged from 1.5 cm x 1.0 cm to 39.0 cm x 23.0 cm.


RESULTS
Sixty skin flaps survived completely, partial necrosis occurred in 3 flaps, and complete necrosis in 2 flaps. There was no obvious difference in average survival rate among local skin flaps (95.2%), distant pedicled skin flaps (88.8%), and free skin flaps (92.3%, P > 0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
Skin flap transposition can be still considered as the major effective method in repair of massive deep skin and soft tissue injury. On the premises of high survival rate, free skin flap transposition can be considered as the first choice.
Zheng
Zhao
Z
Burns Center of PLA, Xijing Hospital, the Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an 710032, China.
Hu
Da-hai
DH
Xu
Ming-da
MD
Zhu
Xiong-xiang
XX
Han
Jun-tao
JT
Dong
Mao-long
ML
Tao
Ke
K
Wang
Hong-tao
HT
Xie
Song-tao
ST
Jiang
Chu-yun
CY
Chen
Bi
B
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002056:Burns / Q000601:surgery*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019651:Plastic Surgery Procedures / Q000379:methods; D012867:Skin / Q000293:injuries*; D016038:Skin Transplantation / Q000379:methods; D017695:Soft Tissue Injuries / Q000601:surgery*; D013524:Surgical Flaps; D055815:Young Adult