Scar is the inevitable result of the repair and healing of trauma in the organism. The manifestation of scarring is not exactly the same due to the different causes of trauma, differences in the patient’s race, age, site of injury, physical differences and other factors. Scarring can have various effects on the patient’s life and labor, and therefore needs to be treated.
The main treatment methods are as follows: 1.Non-surgical treatment: For scar patients who do not need surgery or while waiting for surgery, elastic sleeve compression therapy, medication (intra-scar medication injection, extra-scar medication rubbing and oral medication), radiotherapy, laser, etc. can be applied to flatten hyperplastic scars and restore the color to or close to normal skin color.
2.Dermabrasion: It is suitable for superficial scars left after acne, smallpox, chickenpox, herpes zoster, eczema, trauma, burns or surgery to make the scars and the surrounding skin height plane smaller and the scars become blurred so as to improve the appearance, and currently mechanical or laser grinding is mostly used.
3.Keloid scar excision and suture plastic surgery: it is a common surgical method in scar treatment, and can be used for small scars, which can be excised in one time or excised in stages with cosmetic suture technique, generally leaving only a thin scar line after surgery.
4.Keloid release local reshaping surgery: For small striped and webbed scar with tension, the scar can be excised, and the normal skin tissue around it can be used to form a flap to repair the skin defect in the scar area by cross transposition.
5.Flap repair and skin grafting: For cases with larger area or skin defective trauma after excision of scar that cannot be directly sutured, skin flap transfer and skin grafting can also be used for repair to minimize the scar. However, the skin grafting site is darker and more different from the surrounding normal skin, and a new scar will be added to the donor area. Patients have a long recovery period, relatively high cost, and generally require hospitalization.
6. Tissue soft tissue expansion: For some contracted keloid scars on the head, face and joints or larger area keloid scars can be repaired by using skin tissue expanders created in the last thirty years. Through a small incision, an expander of appropriate volume is placed at the normal skin next to the scar, and the skin is expanded by regular water injection after the first stage of surgery. After the normal skin is expanded to cover the scar skin, the scar can be excised and the expanded skin is covered and repaired on the wound surface. The color of the expanded skin is less different from the surrounding normal skin, and the surgery can reduce the scar to a minimum. However, the procedure takes a long time (about 2~3 months), is expensive, and requires a second hospitalization before and after the procedure.