The management of soft tissue defects of the elbow is a difficult problem. Open elbow joint can inevitably result in leakage of synovial fluid and subsequent joint infection. Soft tissue defect in this area can cause a severe functional disability due to continuous erosion of supporting structures of the joint, and it can further cause the reduction of dislocation or fracture difficult. There fore, an adequate coverage of the lesion and early excercise are important to salvage the elbow joint with good function. Recently I have experienced two parients with exposed elbow joint due to traumatic injury. One has open wound in the posterior aspect of elbow joint and the other in the lateral aspect. I successfully treated the patients using the proximally-based radial forearm island flap and latissimus dorsi muscular island flap with split thickness skin graft. And I also found that two procedures are very useful.
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