Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 27, 2026

Ischemic Tissue Injury in the Dorsal Skinfold Chamber of the Mouse: A Skin Flap Model to Investigate Acute Persistent Ischemia
Published on: November 17, 2014
The Effect of Topical Vitamin A and E on Ischemic Random Skin Flap Survival
Seyed Esmail Hassanpour1, Khalil Rostami1, Eznollah Azargashb1
1Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Medicine School, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Background:
Ischemia of skin flaps is an important complication in reconstructive surgery. This study evaluated the efficacy of topical vitamins A and E on improving flap survival.
Methods:
Twenty-four white-albino male rats were randomly divided into two groups of treatment and control. Standard rectangular, distally based dorsal random pattern skin flap was elevated. Intra-peritoneal cephazoline was administered to prevent any unexpected infection. No pharmaceutical agent was administered for the control group, but pure vaseline ointment. In treatment group, vaseline plus vitamins A and E were administrated daily after surgery for 10 days. The rats were evaluated on the 10th day after surgery for viable and necrotic portions of the flaps.
Results:
The mean values of necrosis in the flaps were 625±189.56 and 920.00±247.31 in the treatment and control groups, respectively. Vaseline plus vitamins increased flap survival significantly.
Conclusion:
Topical vitamins A and E may be effective pharmaceutical agents to increase viability of random skin flaps in rats. They can be added to vasoactive topical agents to reach better results.
Related Concept Videos
Role of Skin in Vitamin D Synthesis
The solar UV B rays (290-315 nm) are absorbed by the skin, and 7-dehydrocholesterol (provitamin D3) photolyzes it to previtamin D3, which undergoes a rapid transformation to vitamin...
Vitamins
Survival Tree
Building a Survival Tree
Constructing a...
Survival Curves
The Kaplan-Meier estimator is the most common method for constructing survival curves. This...
Random Error
Random Variables
Uppercase letters such as X or Y denote a random variable. Lowercase letters like x or y denote the value of a random variable. If X is a random variable, then X is written in words, and x is given as a number.
For example, let X = the...

