Introduction:

For many years the abdominal region has been a reliable donor of abundant well-perfused tissue. The subdermal plexus constitutes an intricate network of microvessels that comprise the entire abdominal skin and allow for innumerable and redundant connections.

Method:

Using a retrospective cohort study, we considered the first 100 deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flaps performed for breast reconstruction in the High Specialty Medical Department #21 of the Mexican Institute of Social Security in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, from January 2010 until December 2015.

Results:

Of the 100 patients studied, 70 (70%) correspond to the group with abdominal scars and 30 (30%) to the group with no abdominal scars. Of the total patients, only one case of flap necrosis arose secondary to venous thrombosis (1%). This patient had no abdominal scars. The success of the flap was compared between groups using the Fisher exact test, obtaining p = 0.717.

Conclusion:

Abdominal scars do not represent a contraindication for breast reconstruction with DIEP flap even if perforator detection is performed only with hand held 8 MHz doppler.

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