Abstract 128: Potential Virulence of MRSA and Enterococcus in Patients Undergoing Free Tissue Transfer for Chronic, Non-healing Lower Extremity Wounds

PURPOSE: Chronic wounds in the lower extremity (LE) often fail to heal, necessitating free tissue transfer (FTT) for limb salvage. Patients in whom microsurgical LE reconstruction is indicated are often highly comorbid and prone to infection. In LE free flap studies, Hashimoto et al.1 and Corten et al.2 reported common wound colonization with Staphylococcus and Enterococcus, findings similar to those within patients of our tertiary-care center. While larger studies have investigated the microsurgical significance of Staphylococcus, few, if any, have investigated Enterococcus. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential virulence of bacterial colonization on microsurgical limb-salvage outcomes