Minimally invasive axillary odor treatment with small incisions

Axillary odor, commonly known as “fox odor”, is a form of limited oedema. The majority of Oriental people are diagnosed with axillary odor, while the majority of Western or black people are diagnosed with hyperhidrosis. The disease is caused by the secretion of the sweat glands in the armpits, which is decomposed by bacteria and produces an odor that is caused by unsaturated branched-chain fatty acids of six to ten carbons. Although axillary odor does not affect the function of the body, nor does it affect the appearance, but it will affect the work life and social interaction, the psychological impact on people, especially teenagers, will have a certain negative impact. With the continuous improvement of the national standard of living and the increasing attention to psychological problems, axillary odor is receiving more and more attention. The heavy odor causes a serious psychological burden to the patient, and also brings a greater impact on the patient’s work and life. Surgery: Before surgery, a routine blood test should be done, the armpit should be cleaned and the axillary hair should be shaved. Procedure: With both upper extremities abducted and both hands behind the occiput, the skin is cut along the design line with anatomical scissors and sharply separated at the junction of the subdermis and the subcutaneous tissue with the tip of the scissors facing upward so that the skin above the scissors is as thin as possible, leaving as many hair follicles and sweat glands as possible on the tissue flap below. The skin is lifted with a pull hook and the scissors are sharply separated on the superficial fascial surface to the drawn line. After sufficient peeling, long tissue scissors are extended from the lower end of the incision into the lax subcutaneous subfascial space and bluntly separated, with the tip of the scissors penetrating through the subcutaneous tissue at the upper end of the incision, and the superficial axillary fascial layer (superficial subcutaneous fat layer) containing the hair follicles and sweat glands is incised with an electric knife under the protection of the tissue scissors up to the superficial deep axillary fascia. The superficial axillary fascia layer is picked up with a vascular clamp and pulled upward to reveal a thin fibrous septum at the junction of the superficial and deep axillary fascia. During this procedure, attention is paid to hemostasis, and it can be observed that the fat particles in the superficial axillary fascia are coarse and yellowish in color, while the fat particles in the deep axillary fascia are fine and white in color, which helps to grasp the level during the operation and avoid damaging the important blood vessels and nerves in the deep axillary fascia. In order to remove the axillary hair and to achieve a complete surgical result, the flap can be further held against the finger and some of the tissue of the sweat glands and hair follicles remaining on the flap can be cut out. Chloramphenicol saline is used to flush the separated cavity, squeeze out the free tissue fragments in the peeling cavity, drain the subcutaneous fluid, stop bleeding thoroughly, and close the incision with interrupted 3-0 silk sutures. Vaseline gauze was used to cover the incision, and 2-4 stitches were sewn on each side of the axillary hair area, wet gauze was packed and fixed, and an elastic bandage “8” was used for external fixation and pressure bandaging. Postoperatively, antibiotics were applied for 7 days and the shoulder was braked for at least 5 days. The compression pack was removed about 5 d after surgery, and the stitches were removed in 10-14 d. Discussion: The current treatment of axillary odor can be summarized into two types, one is non-surgical treatment, such as topical drug application, laser or electrocautery irradiation, injectable drugs (sclerotherapy, botulinum toxin), etc.. The disadvantage is that the destruction of sweat gland tissue in the treatment is blind, and the destruction of sweat gland tissue is limited. Some sweat glands are temporarily destroyed and fibrotic, but they can be revived after a year or more. Therefore, non-surgical treatment is not effective and is prone to recurrence. Another type of surgical treatment is the traditional method of axillary skin suture excision, as well as minimally invasive methods such as sweat gland scraping, sweat gland clipping, and swelling aspiration. The disadvantage of axillary skin shuttle excision suture is that the excision of large trauma, suture will leave obvious scar, affecting the appearance and arm lifting function, although improved into Z-shaped suture to reduce the trauma but the axillary hair area can not be completely excised, affecting the effect, there is still obvious scar, can not achieve the purpose of treatment. Studies have confirmed that patients with axillary odor have a large number of sweat glands in the axillary area, large size, secretion, etc. These patients will have axillary odor even in the case of normal axillary flora. Therefore, the key to radical axillary odor treatment is to completely remove the sweat glands. A histological study by the Korean scholar Byeon et al. showed that the sweat glands are located mainly in the subdermis to the subcutaneous fat layer range, mainly in the central axillary area. A histological study conducted by Nikki scholars on axillary odor also concluded that the axillary sweat glands are located in the range of 1.7-3.7 mm below the epidermis and are located deeper. Domestic embryological studies have proved that the sweat glands are similar to the sebaceous glands, both originate from the primitive epithelial germ, occurring from the epithelial cells of the hair follicles do not open directly on the skin surface, but above the opening of the sebaceous glands, open to the hair follicles, the location of the glands is deeper, generally in the superficial layer of subcutaneous fat. From the above studies, it is clear that sweat gland scraping and sweat gland clipping cannot remove the deeper located sweat glands; and swelling aspiration cannot effectively remove the sweat glands that are closely adhered to the dermal reticular layer. The above commonly used minimally invasive surgical methods are unable to truly remove the sweat glands anatomically and thoroughly, and are prone to odor residue. Therefore, to completely remove the sweat glands, it is not enough to scrape or cut out the subdermal layer or superficial subcutaneous sweat glands, but the superficial axillary fascia layer under the axilla must be lifted from the superficial surface of the deep axillary fascia. Therefore, in comparison, because this procedure achieves the deepest anatomical level of all methods, the axillary small incision minimally invasive hair follicle-hyperhidrosis-superficial axillary fascia flap method is the most complete method to remove the hyperhidrosis. The features and advantages of minimally invasive axillary odor treatment are: (1) A small incision parallel to the axillary crease can remove the sweat glands to the greatest extent possible, resulting in a high cure rate. (2) Adopting a parallel incision in the axillary crease, the postoperative scars are small and concealed, and do not affect the function of both upper limbs or the aesthetics. (3) The composite tissue flap formed by the intraoperative peeling can be used for traction, and the operative field is well exposed, and hemostasis can be stopped while peeling under direct vision, so that hemostasis is complete and there is less chance of hematoma after surgery. (4) This method can reduce or eliminate the growth of axillary hair at the same time, which is suitable for female patients or patients with axillary odor who also suffer from axillary hypertrichosis and require removal of axillary hair. (5) The surgical method is easy and safe, and is done bilaterally in 1 time, usually without hospitalization, and with special circumstances up to 4-5 days. From the current point of view the method of treatment is consistently reliable, small trauma mouth, scar is not obvious, less complications, currently in major hospitals in plastic surgery popular and recognized as a good method of treatment of armpit odor. The following points should be noted. (1) Peel the hair follicle – sweat gland – axillary superficial fascial layer composite tissue flap when the surgical instruments should be parallel to the tissue flap, to avoid upward penetration of the flap, downward injury to nerves, blood vessels. (2) Because of the surgical removal of the composite tissue flap, more tissues are removed than other surgeries, so the direct suture of the skin on the surface is sometimes looser, which is not conducive to compression and fixation and easily produces hematoma. Appropriate shuttle-shaped excision of part of the skin can be considered. If necessary, several small incisions of about 0.4 cm parallel to the crease can be made on the flap to facilitate drainage, and the scars are small and difficult to detect after follow-up. (3) Postoperative sutures should be packed and fixed to stop bleeding on the one hand and to keep the skin piece tightly attached to the wound on the other hand to facilitate healing. (4) Postoperative patients should be bandaged and fixed to keep the upper arm lightly out of the booth and avoid strenuous activities of the upper limb, especially the first 4 days after surgery is most important. Postoperative antibacterial and hemostatic drugs are applied.