Implants and flap transfers are two of the earliest and most common terms that patients seeking plastic surgery hear, so what exactly do they mean and what do they mean to the patient. Here’s a simple layman’s explanation: Implantology: A piece of skin is cut from one area of the body and sutured to another area where the skin is needed. The area that is cut is called the donor area, which is usually a hidden area with loose skin, and the area that receives the implant is called the recipient area, which is the area that lacks skin. There are some places where skin cannot be implanted, such as bone joints and places where nerve vessels and tendons pass through. The thickness of the skin slice is usually thin, and according to the specific thickness, it is divided into thin skin slice, medium-thick skin, and full-thick skin. The thinner the skin slice, the easier it is to survive, but the shrinkage is obvious, while the thicker the skin slice, the harder it is to survive, but the shrinkage is lighter. The overall treatment process of skin grafting is relatively short, from surgery to stitch removal in about 2 weeks. The disadvantage is that the transplanted pieces of skin will shrink, and there is usually a certain color difference, which is more obvious in people with darker skin color; at the same time, the transplanted pieces of skin itself do not have hair follicles sebaceous glands and sweat glands, and the wear resistance gradually deteriorates as the thickness of the transplanted pieces of skin becomes thinner. Flap: A transfer tissue with a full layer of skin and corresponding supply vessels is a flap, which can be divided into many types depending on the form of supply vessels, the most common being the random flap and the most technically demanding being the free flap —- which needs to join the vessels. Flaps are usually thicker and can cover a lot of trauma, providing better cosmetic and functional results. Sometimes the flap can be thicker and require multiple surgical revisions after transfer. Expanded flap: The flap booked for transfer is enlarged with an expander prior to transfer, and this form of flap is called an expanded flap. There are many advantages of the dilated flap, the main advantage is that it produces more tissue, using this feature, the plastic surgeon can achieve better treatment results, but poor utilization can have more problems, such as more incisions, etc. The process of expansion treatment takes 3 to 4 months, and generally the longer the process of expansion, the better the results of expansion. The shorter the process of expansion, the greater the post-operative retraction and the greater the discount of the surgical effect may be. Skin maintenance: The period of time waiting for surgery after the dilation has stopped, usually over 3 weeks (21 days). This process is neither continued injection nor surgery and is called static dilation. This process is the process of skin maturation and with this process, the post-operative retraction will be less. Sometimes it is also possible to raise the skin when the local skin blood flow becomes poor during the expansion process and wait for the blood flow to become better to continue the expansion.