[Judgment of defect length of extremities artery trauma and reconstruction].

Objective: To study the influence of actual defect length and gap width of the limbs main artery on the method selection of repairing and reconstruction.

Methods: Retrospective study was carried out for 32 patients with extremity main artery injury from 1996 to 2009, including 30 males and 2 females; 30 adults with an average age of 36 years old ranging from 18 to 51 years, 2 children of 4 and 5 years old respectively. Injured body parts involved axillary artery in 4 cases,brachial artery in 7 cases,radial artery in 2 cases, femoral artery in 4 cases, popliteal artery in 13 cases, posterior tibial artery in 2 cases. Main arterial injury defect gap width of all cases were observed and the reasons were analyzed. All cases were repaired by the method of end to end anastomosis after vessels stretch.

Results: The artery defect width was 3 cm to 7 cm with an average of (4.375 +/- 1.200) cm. Defect width of the upper extremity brachial artery and axillary artery group was (5.73 +/- 0.63) cm,the lower extremity femoral and popliteal artery group (3.80 +/- 0.73) cm, the posterior tibial artery group (3.25 +/- 0.35) cm, the radial artery group (3.00 +/- 0.00) cm. Defect width of upper extremity brachial artery and axillary artery group was larger than that of the other three groups (P < 0.01). End to end anastomosis was performed successfully in all cases. Blood supply recovered well. Because of the severe limb infection 2 patients had amputation in the late. All patients received follow-up. The patients without fracture were followed up to 2 weeks postoperatively, all patients with fractures were followed up to 1 year at least. Limb blood supply was good in all patients during the follow-up.

Conclusion: Blood vessel defect gap width is different from the actual vessel defect, but is larger than the actual vessel defect. Misjudgment of the vascular defect length will lead to more vascular transplantation. The vast majority of vascular defect can be directly repaired by the method of end to end anastomosis after the vessel free and stretch.