Paraspinous muscle flaps

Coverage of midline posterior wounds presents a challenge to the reconstructive surgeon, especially when spinal stabilization hardware has been present and exposed in the wound. Most commonly those wounds that involve the mid to upper thoracic spine have been covered by latissimus dorsi muscle or musculocutaneous flaps. Lower midline wounds, especially in the thoracolumbar region, have needed more complex means of coverage. These have included reversed latissimus dorsi flaps, free flaps, extended intercostal flaps, or fasciocutaneous rotation flaps. We have utilized a far simpler and effective muscle flap: the paraspinous muscle flap. We have raised paraspinous muscle flaps bilaterally and have been able to cover a number of difficult wounds. The wounds were presented by 8 patients with exposed Harrington rods, 3 patients with cerebrospinal fluid leaks, and 1 patient with exposed spinous processes. The wounds in 5 of these 12 patients were in the upper thoracic region, where a latissimus flap was utilized as an additional layer of muscle coverage. The other seven patients had wounds in the lower midline region below the potential reach of the latissimus dorsi. In the latter patients the only flaps employed were paraspinous muscle flaps. We had only one failure in all patients, which involved a recurrent cerebrospinal fluid leak in which there was no decompression of the cerebrospinal fluid pressure utilized in the immediate postoperative period to protect the dural repair. In that instance, a leak recurred. This paper presents the method of flap elevation and the results of our series.