%0 Journal Article
%T Free flap reconstruction following head and neck trauma.
%A Sweeny L
%A Kane AC
%A Thomas CM
%A Futran N
%A Curry JM
%A Bur AM
%A Lu GN
%A Shukla A
%A Skoog H
%A Pena Garcia JA
%A Alnemri AE
%A Alapati R
%A DiLeo M
%A Fuson A
%A Tan K
%A Taghizadeh F
%A Jefferson GD
%A Petrisor D
%A Wax MK
%J Head Neck
%V 0
%N 0
%D 2024 Jul 10
%M 38984564
%F 3.821
%R 10.1002/hed.27867
%X <B>BACKGROUND: </B>Free flap (FF) reconstruction of traumatic injuries to the head and neck is uncommon.<BR><B>METHODS: </B>Multi-institutional retrospective case series of patients undergoing FF reconstruction for a traumatic injury (n = 103).<BR><B>RESULTS: </B>Majority were gunshot wounds (GSW; 85%, n = 88) and motor vehicle accidents (11%, n = 11). Majority underwent osseous reconstruction (82%, n = 84). FF failures (9%, n = 9/103) occurred in GSW patients (100%, n = 9/9) and when multiple subsites were injured (89%, n = 8/9). Preoperative antibiotics correlated with lower rates of a neck washouts (4% vs. 19%) (p = 0.01) and 30-day readmissions (4% vs. 17%) (p = 0.02).<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>All FF failures occurred in the setting of a GSW and the majority involved multiple subsites. Preoperative antibiotics correlated with lower rates of postoperative washout procedures and 30-day readmission.