Free tissue transfer at an army medical center

Free tissue transfer has been demonstrated to be an effective modality of treating a variety of wounds and conditions in the civilian population. The use of these procedures has been underreported by American military surgeons. Military surgeons face unique hurdles that make the effective performance of these procedures difficult. We report our experience with free flap reconstruction at an American Army medical center. We performed 44 free flaps in 38 patients; although operative times and hospital length of stay were comparatively long, our success rates were excellent with only one partial flap loss. The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.