Reverse digital artery island flap in the elderly

• Published in: Injury Vol. 35; no. 5; pp. 507 - 510
• Main Authors: Wilson, Andrew D.H, Stone, Christopher
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01-05-2004; Elsevier
• Subjects: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Amputation, Traumatic - surgery; Anesthesia. Intensive care medicine. Transfusions. Cell therapy and gene therapy; Biological and medical sciences; Diseases of the osteoarticular system; Elderly; Female; Finger Injuries - surgery; Fingers - blood supply; Fingertip injury; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Regional Blood Flow; Reverse digital artery island flap; Surgical Flaps - blood supply; Traumas. Diseases due to physical agents; Fingertip injury; Elderly; Reverse digital artery island flap; Human; Orthopedics; Anesthesia; Reverse flap; Island flap; Digital artery; Resuscitation
• ISSN: 0020-1383; 1879-0267
• DOI: 10.1016/S0020-1383(03)00100-1

The following case report illustrates the successful use of the reverse digital artery island flap in elderly patients.
The reverse digital artery island flap is a recognised method of providing good quality soft tissue cover to the amputated fingertip. First described in 1986 by Kojima, Lai and Han have reported their experience of 52 and 120 of these flaps, respectively. The majority of patients in the literature are less than 50 years old, with ages ranging from 3 to 62 years. The flap is based upon reversed flow in the digital artery via a communicating branch from the contralateral artery at a point 5
mm proximal to the distal interphalangeal joint crease.
In the two cases reported below, we have shown that the indications for this type of homodigital flap reconstruction for fingertip amputations can be safely extended to elderly patients.