North American experience with knee disarticulation with use of a posterior myofasciocutaneous flap. Healing rate and functional results in seventy-seven patients.

BACKGROUND

A method for closure of a knee disarticulation wound with use of the posterior calf skin and gastrocnemius muscle bellies as an integral flap, without destruction of the perforating vessels, was described by Klaes and Eigler in 1985. The purposes of the present study were to report our experience with use of this technique in a prospective series of knee disarticulations and to determine the healing rate and the functional result after use of the flap.

METHODS

Eighty knee disarticulations, performed with use of the flap described by Klaes and Eigler, in seventy-seven patients were evaluated in a prospective manner. The patients ranged in age from nineteen to ninety-two years (mean, sixty-four years). Thirty-one patients had diabetes mellitus with peripheral vascular disease, and twenty-nine had peripheral vascular disease alone as the primary cause of gangrene. Fourteen patients had a traumatic injury, two had a sarcoma, and one had Ollier disease.

RESULTS

Five patients died in the early postoperative period, leaving seventy-five stumps available for evaluation. A total of sixty-seven stumps (89 percent) healed; sixty-three (84 percent) of them healed primarily. Major wound dehiscence occurred in seven stumps (9 percent), requiring revision to the transfemoral level. Six of those patients had a serum albumin level of less than thirty millimoles per liter. Twenty-two (81 percent) of the twenty-seven patients who could walk before surgery were able to walk with a prosthesis after it.

CONCLUSIONS

This simple technique offers reliable healing of knee disarticulation wounds in properly selected patients with a variety of conditions. It also provides comfortable end-bearing for prosthesis wearers because the distal flap is thick and mobile.