- Bora Başaran: Department of Otolaryngology, Medicine Faculty of İstanbul University, 34390 Fatih, İstanbul, Turkey. bbasaran@istanbul.edu.tr.
OBJECTIVES: This study aims to assess the success rate of surgery and postoperative morbidity in patients who underwent major head and neck surgery with reconstruction by microvascular free flaps performed by otolaryngologists.
PATIENTS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of 63 patients (31 males, 32 females; mean age 47.9±12.5 years; range 20-71 years) operated in our clinic between September 2012 - August 2016. The indications of reconstruction by free flap, success rates, need for revision and re-exploration, reasons of flap failure, morbidity and mortality were evaluated.
RESULTS: Thirty-seven (56.9%) of the 65 microvascular free flaps were radial forearm; 23 flaps (35.4%) were fibula and five flaps (7.7%) were rectus abdominis. Three of the total 65 flaps ended up in failure; accordingly the success rate was 95.4%. Except for these three failure cases, an urgent re-exploration was performed on 13 patients in the first postoperative 48 hours (n=16, %24.6). No permanent major sequel was observed in any of the patients.
CONCLUSION: From the otolaryngologists' point of view, we observed that performing microvascular surgery and the successful surgical results not only gives the flexibility in reconstruction but also provides safer resection during ablative surgery.