Gillies' Corner Stitch Revisited

Gillies' corner stitch (GCS) has been generally accepted for closure of skin flap tips because it is commonly believed that this stitch provides the best chance for survival of a flap tip that may have a compromised blood supply. There are no experimental data, however, to support such an assumption. To test the hypothesis that other stitches might be equally efficacious, we evaluated flap tip survival after closure with two different suture techniques, the GCS and a vertical loop stitch (VLS). Factors used to evaluate flap tip viability were the measurement of RBC movement in the flap tip by laser Doppler technique and measurement of the length of flap tip necrosis. In our model, the GCS is not superior to the VLS in terms of flap tip survival.