Use of muscular, musculocutaneous and omental flaps to reconstruct difficult defects

These recently popularized flaps make reconstruction of some difficult defects possible in a single operation, with surprisingly good results. They have significant advantage over free flaps (except, perhaps, in the hands ofa few experts) because the chance of failure is considerably less. We do not propose that these flaps be used instead of local tissue (when available), or instead of split-skin grafting (when an appropriate bed exists). Additionally, in some instances, the use of muscle flaps would result in a significant loss of function. However, in suitable cases their use is a rewarding addition to the peviously available methods reconstruction.