ABSTRACT
During flap surgery, some fat tissue must be retained with the donor skin to preserve vascularization. Defatting surgery may be later required if the flap is too bulky. Although primary defatting at the time of creating flap has been reported by some surgeons (1,2), these methods are technically difficult. Conventional defatting with scissors and forceps is meticulous and fatiguing work and sufficient defatting is difficult, because great care must be taken not to damage the flap circulation. Some new techniques have been introduced to facilitate flap defatting. Hallock (3) has applied suctionassisted lipectomy through a small incision and a blunt canula tunnel. Wu and Chan (4) have reported a technique using an arthroscopic shaver and a suction device. In this study, an ultrasonic surgical aspirator, which selectively fragments the fat tissue using ultrasound, was used for flap defatting, unlike the above-mentioned mechanical techniques (5).
