Prophylactic plating of the donor site of osteocutaneous radial forearm flaps

We carried out a retrospective study of fracture morbidity of radial forearm osteocutaneous donor sites. During a period of three-and-a-half years, 12 patients had had composite flaps taken, and 5 of them had subsequently fractured the radius. We then elected to plate the radius prophylactically and found that over a period of just over two years, none of the 8 patients who had had prophylactic plating at the original harvesting operation had subsequently fractured the radius.