Congenital and Myelomeningocele

Dr. Duffy occasionally operates on neonates for a variety of reasons.  He does not do craniofacial surgery such as cleft lips and palates.  He does however occasionally operate on conditions such as congenital bands of the extremities and has treated multiple babies in the neonatal units for “wound healing issues”.

Early on in his career he developed a novel way for covering large skin defects associated with lumbar myelomeningoceles (also known as spina bifida).  He applied his knowledge of local vascular anatomy and training in perforator flap surgery to this clinical problem, elevating and transferring very small superior gluteal artery perforator flaps (SGAP) to cover the repaired neural tube defect done by pediatric neurosurgical colleagues.  Below is an illustration of the technique.