ABSTRACT
The term tissue transfer implies the movement of tissue for reconstructive surgical purposes. Therefore, the term distinguishes itself from ablative surgery, where indeed tissue is excised and moved, but for the purposes of elimination of the tissue from the person’s body. Thus, imperative to tissue transfer, is the survival of the tissue. This chapter describes the techniques of tissue transfer as they apply to genitourinary reconstructive surgery. In recent years, tissue transfer, as it applies to genitourinary reconstructive surgery, has been a bit of a moving target as better definition and understanding of the principles by which tissues were moved for that purpose have developed. For the most part, tissue transfer for use in genitourinary reconstructive surgery is dependent on graft techniques as well as on local flap techniques. However, an evolution in the understanding of the move from random to axial techniques is based on a number of sentinel studies in which the vasculature to the genitourinary superficial structures was defined.
