AUtologous fat graft in foot calcaneal postsurgical chronic ulcer

Introduction: Post-traumatic injury of talus's posterior area and ankle joint with consequent scar formation is often complicated by an unhealing trophic ulcer. Aim of this paper is to evaluate the autologous fat graft effectiveness in treating Achilles tendon area wounds. Material and Methods: From October 2011 to March 2014 we treated with fat graft a total of 7 patients with post-surgical painful chronic ulcer of calcaneal area. Mean age was 38.6 years (range 22–64 years). One patient was a professional football player who was presenting a post-injury ulcer not respondant to advanced dressings. Results: Wound rehepitelization was observed in all cases treated within one month and fat grafting resolved pain related to the wound. All patient returned to their daily normal activities. In all cases treated we observed an increased softness of perilesional post-surgical scars. Our professional football player came back able to perform an usual training 5 days post-operation obtaining complete rehepitelization within 3 weeks. Discussion: Our surgical approach showed a therapeutic effect that relies on biological properties of adipose tissue; those properties are clear in both procedures of chronic ulcer's rehepitelization stimulation and perilesional tissue's enhancement obtaining pain control. The procedure is safe, with low rate of complication.