Clinical Study What Is Safe Limit of the Perforator Flap in Lower Extremity Reconstruction? Do We Have Answers Yet?

Copyright © 2011 Nikhil S. Panse et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative CommonsAttribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. We make an attempt to define the safe extent of local perforator flap for lower limb reconstruction by comparing it with the limb length of the patient. The maximum flap length from the perforator was compared to the limb length in 35 patients using EPI info 6.04D software. On comparison of flaps that were less than one-third of limb length to those which were more than one-third of limb length, the statistical values were significant. The odds ratio calculated was 6, which means that there is a six times more chance that a local perforator flap will necrose if it is more than one-third of the limb length as compared to a flap which is less than one-third of the limb length. 1