Not all juxtaposition surgeries require skin grafting. Some juxtaposition surgeries require skin grafting because the skin can be sutured directly after separation. However, we rarely encounter such cases in the many finger merging surgeries we have done, but in most cases, there is a lack of skin volume, and this is where implants are needed.
The skin is usually taken from other parts of the child’s body to cover the wound, and the donor area is usually chosen to be the child’s tummy area, because the skin here is soft and tough, which is more suitable. Many parents are concerned about this and feel that it is too cruel to their children as they still have a long way to go, so many parents ask for skin implants from their own bodies.
So can the parent’s skin be used for the child or not? Parents’ skin cannot be used, but only skin can be taken from the baby’s own body and implanted. If you cover the trauma with skin implants, the new trauma and scars on the tummy cannot be avoided, even if the surgery is done well, there will be traces, and if you want your child to completely avoid trauma scars on the tummy after the surgery, you can only do the juxtaposition finger surgery without skin implants, which is very complicated, and there are many factors to consider. Therefore, many syndactyly surgery methods have been designed to avoid skin grafting as much as possible, but the severity and complexity of syndactyly varies, and there is no syndactyly surgery method that can completely solve the problem of skin grafting during syndactyly.
However, now we have the artificial dermis induced implant-free technology, which completely abandoned the treatment direction of using the child’s original condition to cover the trauma, and directly used the artificial dermis to cover the trauma in the syndactyly, inducing the skin to grow by itself, without taking the skin from other parts of the child’s body to implant, and minimizing the trauma of the surgery. Because the artificial dermis is induced to grow on its own, the appearance and sensory function of the finger body after surgery are better, and it is very close to the original skin, and the overall effect is significantly improved compared with the skin implant.