500\u2003Tetraminos Flap

Abstract

\n 30 year old male, who had been hit at 90mph whilst on a motorbike sustaining femoral, tibial and right foot open fractures. He underwent an open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) of his right lateral femoral condyle, a right retrograde femoral nail, and ORIF of the tibia. He had 2 separate free flaps (a chimera scapular/parascapular and antero-lateral thigh-ALT) to his right lower leg, and split skin grafting to the remainder of the right lower limb. Upon regular post-operative review it was found that whilst healed the limb was showing a poor return of function and a major contributor was the lack of motion of the right knee joint. Patient had an excision of the split skin graft, with a quadriceps plasty, where the myofascial planes were released, and the contractures incised, with a chimeric scapular and parascapular free flap onto the defect. This resulted in coverage of large soft tissue defect with no need to skin graft donor sites and no functional implication of muscle harvest. Tetraminos in appearance, like the popular computer game, which has never before been described, compared with normal coverage, which would be latissimus dorsi free flap and graft.