Perioperative Management of the Facial Wounds with Insight of Scar Prevention

Abstract

Human face is the front side of a head which functions most of all for individual identity. Global culture agrees that scarring on the face reduces attractiveness to the opposite sex; and it drives everyone with a wound or a proposed wound on his/her face to ask for a favorable scar. Clinical management of incisional scars begins with a thorough discussion of surgical pre-measures. The main modifiable factor of scar formation is the design of the skin incision that bears the least tension in the healing period. During surgical procedures, doctors must pay attention to skin tension lines and vascularization to the wound edge tissues. After the surgical procedure, sutures with non-absorbable materials must be taken off, and skin tape must be applied perpendicularly to the wound axis to reduce tensions during the remodeling phase of healing. The patients’ active participation in wound management, even long after the wound appears to heal, support good outcomes. Post-surgical evaluation visits must be conducted and focus on the prevention, early detection, and proper management of the healing wound, especially ones with hypertrophic potential. Hypertrophic scars which do not improve after six months is no longer considered hypertrophic scars but it is considered keloids which require proactive and more intensive management.