TO INVESTIGATE BRANCHED ANATOMICAL FEATURES OF THE LATERAL FEMORAL CIRCUMFLEX ARTERY USED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPOSITE ANTEROLATERAL THIGH (ALT) FLAP

Introduction: The research of the lateral femoral circumflex artery has been studied and applied in many clinical fields. Objectives: To investigate branched anatomical features of the lateral femoral circumflex artery used in the construction of the composite anterolateral thigh (ALT) flap. Patients and research methods: 60 thigh areas of 30 Vietnamese adult cadavers meeting the research standards were conducted cross-sectional descriptive analysis. Result: lateral femoral circumflex artery usually has three branches that are ascending branch, oblique branch and descending branch. Descending branch usually separated independently (11.7%), oblique branch and ascending branch often have common body (83.3%). The majority of ascending branches have origin from lateral femoral circumflex (76.7%). Ascending branche has average of 4.1 branches to supply the anterior thigh muscles. Ascending branches has 2-3 cutaneous perforators were the majority (41.7%). There are 73 descending branch, 75.34% descending branch from the original branch of the lateral femoral circumflex artery, 8.22% lateral femoral circumflex artery from femoral artery and 16.44% descending branch from deep femoral artery. Averaging descending branch has 8.9 ± 0.2 branches to muscles of anteriolateral thigh area and on average had 3.1 ± 0.3 perforators per thigh specimen. The number of branches to lateralis muscles was at most 7.9 ± 0.4 branhes. Conclusion: Anatomical research of the lateral femoral circumflex artery branching as a premise to build a composite ALT flaps with lateralis component or with TFL makes sense in the creation of workhorse materials in clinical application. Key words: lateral femoral circumflex artery