Letter: tent suture: technique for coverage of exposed vessel in the neck.

A 79-year-old woman underwent Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS) for management of a recurrent basal cell carcinoma on the left neck. The tumor was removed in two layers. Examination of the wound after MMS showed a minimally pulsatile vessel in the center of the defect. The vessel collapsed when the position of the patient was changed from supine to sitting (Figure 1). It was determined that this was a branch of the external jugular vein. A primary closure was planned to reconstruct the defect. To avoid trauma to the vessel in the course of reconstruction or by the buried sutures, however, a ‘‘tent suture’’ was used.