| Objective:To discuss indications,surgical techniques and complications of the use of pedicled buccal fat pad flap to reconstruct buccal or palatal defects after tumor resection.Method:We used the pedicled buccal fat pad flap to reconstruct buccal or palatal defects right after tumor resection. The maximum extent was 5.0cm×4.5cm, the minimum extent was 2.0cm×2.5cm.Thirty-two patients with buccal or palatal tumors that visited the oral and maxillofacial surgery department of 2nd affiliated hospital of Zhejiang university from 2005 to 2010 were included in this study.Twenty-two of these cases were pathologically diagnosed as squamous cell carcinoma.five leukoplakia canceration.one mucoepidermoid carcinoma.one verrucous carcinoma.one adenoid cystic carcinoma and one papillary adenocarcinoma. We observed the epithelization process of the flap,change of mouth opening before and after the surgery.Besides.we evaluated the postop eating and pronunciation functions.Result:All the flaps survived as expected except one.Swelling extincted in 2-4 weeks after surgery and fully epithelization was observed in about 6-8 weeks. Three patients died of tumor recurrence and one patient failed to be followed up three months after surgery. Follow up after 3 months showed that 16 of them had a mouth opening >3.0cm.8 was 2.0cm-3.0cm and 7 was< 2.0cm.The ratio of mild-severe mouth-opening limitation was 21.88%.Eating and pronunciation functions were basically normal among all the patients.None of them would need a secondary operation.ConcIusion:The use of buccal fat pad flap has a lot of advantages mainly as follows:esay to gethidden incision and performance considered to be safer.Besides,a low rate of complication and a high rate of surviving has also been observed.All these make it an ideal choice to reconstruct small to mild buccal and palatal defects.The surgical techniques are not only easy to learn but also deserve to be mastered,especially for the young doctors. |
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