Opportunistic use of naturally expanded neck skin for a buccal mucosa defect

A 77-year-old female presented with an ulceroproliferative lesion of the left buccal mucosa extending to the commissure, diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma on biopsy. She also had a large thyroid swelling, with expanded skin, diagnosed with a multinodular goiter. The patient underwent buccal mucosa wide local excision with left-sided selective neck dissection and total thyroidectomy. The naturally expanded skin over the anterior neck overlying the goiter was used for the reconstruction of the buccal mucosa defect based on the perforator unexpectedly arising directly from the external carotid artery instead of superior thyroid artery. The venous drainage was to an internal jugular vein tributary, multiple dilated veins on the flap were draining into this vein. We describe the innovative use of locally expanded skin for buccal mucosa reconstruction and thereby avoiding the morbidity of a free flap transfer and associated donor site morbidity.