Free Flap

A free flap, also called free autologous tissue transfer or microvascular free tissue transfer, is a specialized surgical flap that is transplanted from one site of the body to another while carrying its own blood supply. The tissue is completely detached from its original donor site, including its blood vessels, moved to the recipient site, and revascularized there by microsurgical reanastomosis of its artery and vein, in contrast to a conventional local or regional flap, which stays partly attached to the donor site by a pedicle and continues to draw its blood supply from the vessels at that original site; a free flap also differs from a simple graft, which carries no blood supply of its own and depends entirely on new vessel growth at the recipient site to survive. Used extensively in plastic and reconstructive surgery, a free flap may transfer skin with its underlying subcutaneous tissue, fat, muscle, nerve, bone, cartilage, lymph nodes or intestinal segments, alone or in combination, an example being a free toe transfer, in which the great or second toe is moved to the hand to reconstruct a missing thumb.