Sural artery flap: a dependable solution in lower leg and foot soft tissue reconstruction

For a variety of reasons, mainly anatomical, the skin and soft tissue defects in the lower leg and foot remain a challenging problem for reconstructive surgeons. Simple skin grafts, local random flaps, cross leg flaps, microvascular flaps, etc., have been used to tackle this difficult problem. Although to date, probably the most popular flaps are the fasciocutaneous flaps based on one of the three major vessels of the leg. We have used a fasciocutaneous flap based on sural artery, accompanying the sural nerve to cover moderate-sized defects in 12 cases. This eliminates the sacrifice of major vessels, and the procedure is easy, quick, and dependable.