Excision And Skin Flap
✔ Medically reviewed by Dr. Ashutosh Shah — M.B., M.S., M.Ch., D.N.B., Board-Certified Plastic & Cosmetic Surgeon, Director of Elegance Clinic, Surat (22+ years’ experience).
A skin graft is a piece of healthy skin taken from one part of your body and transplanted to another part of your body to replace damaged or missing skin. This skin does not have a blood supply of its own. A skin flap is a piece of healthy skin and tissue that has been partially removed and repositioned to cover a wound.
Skin and fat, or skin, fat, and muscle, can be found in a skin flap.
A skin flap is frequently still attached to its original place on one end and connected to a blood artery on the other.
A flap is sometimes transferred to a different location and the blood vessel is surgically rejoined. This is referred to as a free flap.
Skin grafts are used to aid in the healing of more serious, larger, and deeper wounds, such as:
Larger wounds that won't heal on their own
Burns
A significant skin infection has caused skin loss.
Surgical treatment for skin cancer
Unhealed venous ulcers, pressure ulcers, or diabetic ulcers
Following a mastectomy
The donor site is the location from which skin is extracted. You will have two wounds after surgery: the graft or flap itself and the donor site. Donor sites for grafts and flaps are chosen based on the following criteria:
The degree to which the skin resembles the wound region
The distance between the donor location and the wound
Due to newly exposed nerve endings, the donor site is frequently more painful than the wound following surgery.
