Soft tissues reconstruction in the patients with extensive wound defects of the foot using flaps with axial type of circulation (literature review)

Introduction The foot bears the load of the entire body while walking and particularly the plantar part of it resists a tremendous weight-bearing. A peculiarity of the skin cover of the supporting zones is that the elastic fibers of the soft tissues of the plantar foot fix the skin to the deep fascia and the bone skeleton, resulting in minimizing of the supportive tissue mobility and increasing pressure stability without circulation disorder in areas of increased weight-bearing. Therefore, the requirements to the plastic properties of the selected material for the reconstruction of the soft tissues of the foot increase. Purpose is to review the various methods and techniques of surgical treatment for extensive soft tissue defects of the foot using flaps with an axial type of circulation. Material and methods The search of materials was performed from 2015 through 2020 in the following sources of information: eLibrary.ru; bibliographic bases (Scopus,; Web of Science); electronic library of dissertations of the Russian State Library (http://diss.rsl.ru) and sites of Dissertation Boards. The review of 72 publications of national and foreign authors related to this topic is presented. The depth of source selection was 16 years, starting from 2004. In the last 5 years, 45 studies data have been published. The literature related to surgical treatment of extensive defects in the foot soft tissues using complex flaps with an axial type of circulation supply was analyzed. Results Basing on the analysis of publications from various sources, the disadvantages and advantages of various methods and techniques of reconstructive plastic surgery are presented and various approaches and criteria for choosing the techniques of surgical soft tissues reconstruction are described. Conclusion In the treatment of patients with extensive soft tissue defects of the foot at the current stage of the reconstructive plastic surgery development, the doctrines based on microsurgical technologies of autografts of tissue complexes with an axial type of circulation became the most acceptable ways and techniques for lost skin restoration.