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THE FASCIOCUTANEOUS ISLAND FLAP: AN EXTENSION OF THE ANGIOTOME CONCEPT
Author(s) -
Behan F. C.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of surgery
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.111
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1445-2197
pISSN - 0004-8682
DOI - 10.1111/j.1445-2197.1992.tb06943.x
Subject(s) - medicine , deep fascia , anatomy , fascia , trunk , head and neck , surgery , ecology , biology
The concept of the fasciocutaneous island flap (FCIF) has been established as a result of clinical experience in which over 180 cases have been compiled. It is a reconstructive design principle based on vascular and neural anatomy. Even though the flap pattern varies from region to region, it is the trilaminate composition of skin, fat and fascia supplied by fasciocutaneous, musculocutaneous and septocutaneous vessels, which is the basis for its success. Sometimes regional variations in this arrangement occur, for example: there is no deep fascia evident in the trigeminal nerve (CN‐V); and in the hand and the foot, the local vascular anatomy still supports this island flap idea without any defined fascial lining. Following their use in the head and neck region, and as more successful ones were designed, the flaps seemed to follow the circumferential layout on the trunk and the longitudinal distribution in the limbs, similar to the dermatomal markouts. Such dermatomal charts thus became the basis of unexplored flap potentials with or without axial vessels. In the past, the clinical word ‘angiotome’ (which means a vascularized segment) has been used in world literature to describe flap vasculature with axial input. Thus flaps with a fasciocutaneous basis may well be described as a fasciocutaneous angiotome.