Perfusion of muscle flaps independent of the anatomical vascular pedicle: Pedicle autonomy

Muscle flaps can perfuse after an injury to the anatomical vascular pedicle through neovascularisation at the inset. These new vessels are evident early but may not function adequately to perfuse the flap. Regional variations in neovascularisation suggest that a gradient of ischaemia drives this process. Inset at the cutaneous level is important, which has implications for buried muscle flaps. The correlation between change in flap perfusion after pedicle injury and flap necrosis suggests a role for the former in determining the capacity of a muscle flap to tolerate a pedicle injury and thereby the approach to re-raising it.