title: The island anterior intercostal artery perforator flap as another option for the difficult epigastric abdominal wound.
abstract: Closure of the epigastric or upper abdominal wound can be challenging even with traditional flap options. If those are unavailable due to prior surgical or anatomic constraints, a local muscle perforator flap based on the anterior intercostal artery (AICA) may be another available option if a vascularized flap is mandatory. Caution must be observed as the perforators of the AICA are diminutive, and the dissection can be tedious. Nevertheless, in 2 clinical cases, the anterior intercostal artery perforator (AICAP) flap was successfully used as an island pedicled flap to close a difficult subxiphoid wound, proving a secondary role for this donor site as a potential alternative selection.
authors.affiliation: Division of Plastic Surgery, Sacred Heart Hospital and The Lehigh Valley Hospitals, Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA. pbhallock@cs.com
authors.forename: Geoffrey G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Hallock
mesh_terms: D000007:Abdominal Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000601:surgery*; D034861:Abdominal Wall / Q000601:surgery*; D000368:Aged; D000714:Anastomosis, Surgical; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006084:Graft Rejection; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D015601:Injury Severity Score; D007366:Intercostal Muscles / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000637:transplantation; D008297:Male; D008866:Microsurgery / Q000379:methods; D019651:Plastic Surgery Procedures / Q000379:methods*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013524:Surgical Flaps / Q000098:blood supply*; D014945:Wound Healing / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult