Full-thickness skin grafting with marginal deepithelialization of the defect for reconstruction of helical rim keloids

Excising a keloid from the helical rim generally results in a narrow defect with exposed cartilage. Skin grafting is a surgical method with a lowest recurrence rate for keloid treatment. Full-thickness skin grafting may produce an excellent cosmetic outcome, but is generally considered too unreliabl...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inAnnals of plastic surgery Vol. 65; no. 2; p. 193
Main Authors Burm, Jin Sik, Hansen, Juliana E
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.08.2010
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Child
Ear, External - surgery
Esthetics
Female
Graft Survival
Humans
Keloid - surgery
Male
Skin Transplantation - methods
Treatment Outcome
Online AccessGet more information

Cover

More Information
Summary:Excising a keloid from the helical rim generally results in a narrow defect with exposed cartilage. Skin grafting is a surgical method with a lowest recurrence rate for keloid treatment. Full-thickness skin grafting may produce an excellent cosmetic outcome, but is generally considered too unreliable over a poorly vascularized defect with exposed cartilage. Adding a new healthy bed with rich vascularity on the periphery will increase the probability of the entire graft surviving via the bridging phenomenon. We report full-thickness skin grafting using a marginal deepithelialization technique for treatment of helical rim keloids. After keloid excision, the surrounding normal skin was deepithelialized 2 to 3 mm wide over the defect border, followed by full-thickness skin grafting. All grafts survived completely. None of the keloids recurred, and they all showed an excellent aesthetic result during the follow-up period from 9 months to 6 years.
ISSN:1536-3708
DOI:10.1097/SAP.0b013e3181ba99f2