Unconventional Perfusion Flaps in the Experimental Setting

What is it about?

Four decades ago, it was shown that pieces of the body with scant metabolic activity could be mobilized from one part of the body to another based exclusively on their venous system. These tissues transferred in this unorthodox fashion became known as unconventional perfusion flaps (UPFs). These flaps are usually composed of skin and the underlying superficial venous system. Hence, they can be easily tailored to replace missing tissues, particularly after trauma or tumor extirpation. Even though there are numerous experimental papers on UPFs, the multiple animal species involved, the myriad vascular constructions used, and the frequently conflicting data reported makes synthesis of this information challenging._x000D_ To tackle this problem, we systematically reviewed all the studies written in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese on the experimental use of UPFs and indexed to the largest Medical database (PubMed®). Specifically, we wanted to identify the best experimental models of UPFs, and to determine their survival rate._x000D_ A total of 68 studies were found, corresponding to 86 optimized experimental models and to 1073 UPFs. Almost all UPFs survived (90.8%), although only around three quarters of them presented minimal or absent areas of skin death. These data do not differ significantly from those reported regarding the use of UPFs in human medicine. This suggests that the rabbit, rat and canine experimental UPF models can adequately mimic the application of UPFs.

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