Bilateral axillary skin fold flaps used for dorsal thoracic skin wound closure in a dog : clinical communication

Abstract

A 10-year-old greyhound-cross dog was presented with a large, chronic skin wound extending over the interscapular region. The substantial skin defect was closed by making use of bilateral axillary skin fold flaps. It was possible to elevate the 2 skin flaps sufficiently to allow them to meet at the dorsal midline and thus facilitate complete closure of a large and awkwardly positioned wound. Small dorsal areas of the skin flaps underwent necrosis, but the resulting defects were closed without difficulty in a subsequent procedure. To the author's knowledge, this is the 1st clinical report of the use of bilateral axillary skin fold flaps in this fashion and describes an additional use of a versatile skin flap procedure

Auto-Skin Transplantation in Dogs

“…All cases that treated in this study suffered from large skin defects in one of front limbs and this is considered a challenge to a veterinary surgeon, especially when there is no available surrounding skin to close the wound. This is coinciding with other authors (9,10). Whom said that, the skin defects on the limbs of animals present a problem from the standpoint that there is no an abundance of skin on the limbs to reconstruct with, as there is on the trunk of an animal.…”

Cutaneous Flaps for Closing Skin Defects in Dogs

“…Other important potential reasons for flap necrosis include kinking, seroma, haematoma formation and infection (Vasconcellos, 2010). Careful preoperative planning and atraumatic surgical technique are required to minimize these problems (Hunt, 2001;Nevill, 2010).…”

“…Depending on width of the Postoperative cage confinement will also help limit undesirable movement and tension on the skin flaps. Drains are an important consideration as they help to limit dead space formation and fluid accumulation (Nevill, 2010).…”