Abstract
Tongue cancers are common in the spectrum of oral malignancies. In base of tongue cancers, tumour excision might lead to injury of ipsilateral or both lingual arteries, leading to ischemia of residual, native tongue. Free radial artery forearm flap is commonly used for tongue reconstruction. It can also be used as a flow-through flap for the reconstruction of the tongue defect as well as to revascularise the cancer-free tongue remnant. We report here two cases of base of tongue excision for which free flow-through radial forearm flap was used to reconstruct the tongue defect as well as salvage the remaining part of ischemic tongue. This technique can be effectively considered in selected cases of vascular compromise due to lingual vessel sacrifice to preserve the cancer-free anterior native tongue tissue with improved functional outcomes.
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Ameya Bindu, Vineet Kumar, Saumya Mathews, Mayur Mantri, Dushyant Jaiswal, and Vinay Kant Shankhdhar performed the surgeries. Ameya Bindu and Vineet Kumar had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Ameya Bindu and Onkar Kulkarni wrote the manuscript. Dushyant Jaiswal, Kunal Mokhale, Saumya Mathews, and Vinay Kant Shankhdhar reviewed the manuscript.
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The study was done in adherence to the Declaration of Helsinki protocol. Proper pre-procedure consents were taken for surgery, documentation, and research purposes along with consent to publish obtained from the patients. The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee. Data storage was performed in consistence with good clinical practice guidelines.
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Bindu, A., Kumar, V., Kulkarni, O.S. et al. Flow-Through Radial Artery Forearm Flap for Tongue Revascularization After Excision of Base of Tongue Malignancies. Indian J Surg Oncol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13193-024-01929-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13193-024-01929-7