The superior auricular artery and retroauricular arterial island flaps.

This paper reports the finding of the superior auricular artery, which is a fairly large arterial branch, about 1 mm in diameter, arising from the superficial temporal artery anterior to the auricular helix. It is covered by skin, the anterior auricular muscle, and the fascia of the parotid gland. It runs together with its concomitant vein posteriorly in the groove between the cartilage of the ear and the temporal bone and anastomoses with the posterior auricular artery. This artery has been used successfully to raise large retroauricular arterial island flaps for one case of total nose reconstruction and seven cases of reconstruction of the severely constricted anophthalmic socket. These operative procedures are described in detail.