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Updated: May 31, 2026

A Model of Free Tissue Transfer: The Rat Epigastric Free Flap
Published on: January 15, 2017
Two for the price of one: recycling a free flap
1Leeds General Infirmary, Plastic Surgery, Great George Street, Leeds LS1 3EX, United Kingdom. jas@doctors.org.uk
Abstract:
Free flaps are now an established, successful, method of reconstruction for complex soft tissue defects. Improvements in microsurgical techniques, anatomical understanding and instruments have resulted in the evolution of free flap surgery to now encompass synchronous double free flap surgery and "free style" type flaps based on perforators. Although there have been reports of a single free flap split in two to reconstruct a defect at a single site, we report what we believe to be the first case of a single free groin flap used to reconstruct two distant and separate defects sequentially.
