Present day role of plastic surgery in management of chronic radiation wounds: our experience.

Traditional procedures to resurface soft tissues defects following excision of chronic radiation wounds involve the use of skin grafts or skin flaps. However, the poor vascularity of the recipient bed is the reason for the high failure rate of skin grafts. Local skin flaps will often fail because of radiation injury to tissues within the flap itself. Distant skin flaps allow repair with healthy tissues, but these complicated multistaged procedures require prolonged hospitalization. The main advantage of myocutaneous flaps is the possibility of resurfacing large wounds in one step only, with tissues transposed from areas far from the radiation field. The Authors' experience using myocutaneous flaps of latissimus dorsi, pectoralis major, rectus abdominis and tensor fascia lata and the results obtained so are discussed.