RECONSTRUCTION OF RABBIT MANDIBULAR DEFECT USING FREE NEOVASCULARIZED BONE FLAP

유리(遊離) 신혈류화(新血流化) 골판(骨瓣)을 이용(利用)한 가토(家兎) 불악골(不顎骨)의 재건(再建)

To overcome the limitations of conventional microsurgical tissue transfer, experimental creation of various neo-flaps using the vessel implantation technique has been reported. We have performed some experiments of fabrication of neo-osseous flap with local vessels and iliac bone slabs to know that the flap vascularity and neo-angiogenesis are achieved enough to microtransfer. As a next step of our previous experiments, the flap viability and the histologic change between the recipient bone and neo-oseous flap was assessed after microsurgical transplantation. The flap was created on the rabbit femoral region(n=25) using femoral vessel and the iliac bone segments($2.5{\times}1.5cm$ in size). Three weeks after neovascularization, the newly formed flap was harvested and microtransferred to the mandibular defect. As a control, contralateral mandibular defect was created and reconstructed with conventional free iliac bone graft. Scintigrams of experimental group performed 3 days after microtransfer showed hot uptake, while that of control poor uptake. Histologic and vital stain labeling study revealed good bone viability and vascularity of neo-osseous flap. In conclusion, prefabricated neo-osseous flap of our model could be transferred to the recipient site with retaining the flap viability and showed advantages over the conventional bone graft in that it was living bone graft.