Aesthetic Improvement of Burn Scar by Tangential Excision and Thin Split Thickness Skin Graft

Abstract

It has been known that the post-burn scar may cause symptoms including pigmentation, pruritus, pain, and contracture, and result in psychosocial depression of individuals due to the loss of physical functions and dysmorphia depending on the location and severity of the burn scar, leading to substantial disruption in social life. In the particular case of hand and extremities where burn occurs frequently, although there have been a great deal of literature concerning the recovery of functional loss due to the burn contracture, the interest in the aesthetic recovery of the burning scar on the hand tends to be gradually increasing lately, reflecting the words “the hand is the secondary face”. The aesthetic treatments of the post-burn scar on the hand include tattoo, punch grafting, epidermal graft after dermabrasion, chip skin graft and thin sheet skin graft [1-6]. However, the tattoo generated different skin color, and the simple skin graft may result in regrettable outcomes such as prominent scar around the boundary of the burn site, collapse of skin graft site, donor site scar, and pigmentary degeneration over time. Accordingly, we aim to confirm the outcomes of the thin splitthickness skin graft with a thickness of less than 8/1,000 inches that was carried out following the tangential excision of burn scar using an electrical dermatome for the aesthetic improvement of the post-burn scar of the hand.