Feasibility of perforator flaps in Day surgery. A retrospective study through a two-years' experience

Day surgery is developing and its popularity is increasing for a variety of reasons: economic constraints, changes in professional practices, a greater adhesion of the patient. In an era of progress in surgical procedures, pedicled-perforator flaps reducing donor site morbidity and avoiding micro-anastomosis could take their place in Day surgery if planned and managed by an experienced team.

In the period January 2019 to January 2021, we performed perforator flaps for soft tissue coverage in ambulatory setting. The patients were included retrospectively and data were collected by reviewing the medical records. Major and minor complications were recorded.

The retrospective cohort included 32 surgical procedures in 32 patients. In all cases, perforator flaps were realized for resurfacing soft tissue defects consequent to oncodermatology surgery (84.3%), soft tissue sarcoma surgery (12.5%), invasive ductal breast carcinoma (3.1%). Major complications needing a surgical revision overcame 3/32 times (9.4%). In these cases, a failure requiring the drop off the flap overcame once. The average wound healing time was of 33 days (15-90) and the mean duration of follow-up was 9.6 months (1-22).

The low complication rate in our series suggests that this first experience on perforator flaps in outpatient surgery is promising in terms of safety and feasibility. Day surgery could be a practical option for this type of surgical procedures avoiding the conventional department's saturation and allowing the delivery of proper surgical cares.