History is a kind of introduction to more interesting people than we can possibly meet in our restricted lives; let us not neglect the opportunity.
—Dexter Perkins
Plastic surgery probably had its organized beginnings as especially in World War I. Many of the early Physicians involved in the development of plastic surgery as especially were, like Sir Harold Gillies, an Otolaryngologist.4
Correct grammatical usage demands that these flaps be called myodermal, combining the Greek based word, or musculocutaneous, combining two Latin based words. The term myocutaneous being shorter and more popular, will be used here.
800 BC: Susruta (India) is commonly credited with being the first to utilize the tissue flaps, having used forehead flaps to reconstruct the amputated noses. He described miniflaps, flaps from cheek to repair nose and some to repair earlobes. He described the use of horse hair sutures.4
1952: Conley (US) described laterally based skin flaps to cover carotid artery. He described laterally based chest flaps supplied by lateral thoracic and thoracoacromial arteries and superiorly based chest flaps supplied by intercostal branches of the internal mammary arteries. He did not include muscle with the flap.4
1966: Milton (England) reported data that challenged the concept of length-to-width ratio as a determinant in skin flap survival. He said that for a flap to survive to any reasonable length, an arterial supply must be included that will provide an arterial perfusion pressure to the tip of the flap.4
1968: Heuston and McConchie (Australia) noted that by including underlying skeletal muscle in a large skin flap, there was greater assurance of an adequate blood supply. However, they did not use the term myocutaneous.4
1972: McGregor and Morgan (Scotland) enhanced the understanding of flap physiology by distinguishing the difference between axial pattern flaps with a built in arteriovenous system and random pattern flaps which lack such a system. This advanced the concept of primary reconstruction, bringing it closer to single stage.5
1976: McCraw, Dibbell and Caraway (US) published a refinement of concept of independent territories. They first used the word myocutaneous to refer to compound muscle skin flap. The age of myocutaneous flaps has arrived or better stated myocutaneous flaps had come of age and were now being called by their rightful name.4
1977: Ariyan and Krizek (US) reported the use of pectoralis major myocutaneous flaps at Cine Clinics at American College of Surgeons' Meeting.
Since then, Ariyan, McCraw, Biller and many other otolaryngologists, head and neck surgeons and plastic surgeons have reported their results with the use of these flaps.4