Benefits, Drawbacks of Free Abdominal Fat Transfer for Parotidectomy Defect Reconstruction

by Amy E. Hamaker •

Shaoxin Wang, MD, an otolaryngologist with the department of head and neck surgery at the Sichuan Cancer Hospital and Institute in Sichuan, China, and his colleagues performed a prospective randomized trial on 36 patients who underwent parotidectomy and were randomly assigned to abdominal free fat or acellular dermis grafting groups (18 patients in each group). The researchers then evaluated the occurrence of Frey’s syndrome, aesthetic outcome, economic results, and other complications.

Not only did the authors find that both techniques prevented Frey’s syndrome equally well, but patients who had free fat graft transfers were more satisfied with their appearance and paid less for the operation than their counterparts.

Study Details

  • A total of 36 patients (27 male and nine female) with a median age of 57 years were enrolled. Eighteen patients each were allocated to the acellular dermis group and the free fat graft group. One of the 18 patients in the acellular dermis group experienced gustatory sweating over the preauricular regions six months after the operation. (This patient also had a positive starch-iodine test.)
  • No patient in the free fat graft group complained of Frey’s syndrome symptoms.
  • The incidence of objectively diagnosed Frey’s syndrome was 11.1% (2/18) in the acellular dermis group and 5.6% (1/18) in the free fat graft group after starch iodine testing. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (Fisher’s exact test).—AH