Repair of cervical esophagus circular defects with Platysma Muscle-fascia flap in Dogs

Up until today, in cervical esophagus reconstructions, primer sutur (small size defects), skin flaps, musculocutaneous flaps, myofascial flaps, fasciocutaneous flaps, alimentary tract transpositions and prosthetic materials have been used. There have been functional and aesthetical complications owing to the natural structure of flaps in correlation with the donor site deformity which lead to problems in alternatives concerning flap reconstructions. As to reconstruction with prosthetic materials, they have mostly been in experimental researches and have not been clinically adapted in many cases. In our study, we have adapted myofascial flap reconstruction, which is one of the flap reconstruction techniques. As the flap alternative, we have used platysma myofascial flap due to its closeness to the cervical esophagus, its being easily elevated in both experimental and clinical researches and the minimality of expected donor site deformity. In our results, when compared with similar studies, we have a lower mortality and morbidity rate (10 percent mortality and 60 percent morbidity ). We have not observed permanent complications such as stricture and swallowing difficulties, which are usually encountered in clinical studies despite the high fistul amount in the anastomose line. We believe that the high fistul amount in our research is due to the difference between the esophagus structure of the dog, which is our experimental animal and human beings which increases the rate of complication in dogs. In conclusion, we can state that the platysma myofascial flap alternative in human cervical esophagus circumferential reconstruction is a more functional and lower morbidity rate technique and a lower donor site deformity alternative when we consider the platysma structure and location of the cervical esophagus in human beings.