Multiple flap coverage for degloving hand injuries

A technic incorporating the simultaneous elevation of multiple adjacent thoracoabdominal pedicale flaps, based in opposite directions, has been successfully used on four patients with extensive degloving injuries of the hand. In all cases, the hand was later divided into individual digits. A five-year follow-up of three patients is presented, illustrating functional results good enough to allow the patients to return to work. The special problems of a circumferential wound and digital shortening appear to be better controlled by this technic than by a single long "wrap-around" flap. Various technics of skin coverage are reviewed.