Abstract
Animal models have been used for many years in surgical research to develop different
surgical techniques, improve understanding of anatomy and physiology and hone surgical
skills. The benefit of such models has been particularly important in developing relatively
young specialties like plastic surgery and many plastic surgical techniques are designed
and studied in animals long before they are used in humans. We describe techniques
for raising several reliable and reproducible abdominal flaps in rodents, including
transverse rectus abdominis myocutaneous flaps in rats and mice, superficial inferior
epigastric artery flaps in rats and perforator flaps in rats. The intention of this
paper is to act as a point of reference for any microvascular or plastic surgeon who
is planning to perform abdominal plastic surgical flap research or further microvascular
skills.
Keywords
TRAM - DIEP - SIEA - free flap - mice and rats
