Long-term functional donor site morbidity of the free radial forearm flap in head and neck cancer survivors.

Background: To assess the functional donor site morbidity of the forearm free flap in patients surviving at least 2 years after ablative head and neck cancer surgery in a tertiary care centre.

Methods: This study involved nine long-term survivors (2 year post-operative) who had forearm free flaps to reconstruct head and neck defects. All flaps were raised from the non-dominant arm.