To save the patient’s leg from amputation, the surgeons of the First Medical Association of Lviv resorted to a “free flap” operation: the wound was “closed” with a 15-centimeter flap of soft tissue taken from the lower leg.
To restore blood supply to the transplanted area, doctors had to sew up vessels the size of a human hair. This technique is a real find for “war medicine”.
The patient is 40-year-old Yuriy from Lviv. He was admitted to the St. Panteleimon Hospital of the First Medical Association with a complex open fracture of the lower leg, to which one of the most dangerous infections was already added – anaerobic. It is she who provokes necrosis, that is, the death of tissues, up to gangrene.
“Our doctors managed to stop the infection, but along with it they had to remove the “killed” tissue. A wound was formed, which urgently needed to be filled, otherwise there is a risk of further dying and amputation. The only possibility to save the leg in such a situation is a microsurgical “free flap” operation. Such operations have already been performed in Ukraine, but this was the first time a flap of such a large size was transplanted. British colleagues helped our surgeons to do this. Together, they separated a 15-centimeter flap of soft tissue from the patient’s thigh and filled the damaged area of the lower leg with it,” the First TMO reports.
The operation lasted about 10 hours and was successful: the transplanted flap took root and the blood supply to it was restored. The introduction of new technologies in surgery, in particular “free flap” operations, gives a chance to save limbs, organs and body parts, prevents amputations of limbs and significantly improves the quality of life of patients with war trauma. This is the purpose of the creation of the UNBROKEN National Rehabilitation Center, which aims to rescue, prosthetics and rehabilitate Ukrainians in Ukraine.