[Tissue expansion in surgical treatment of burn scars of the scalp]

Abstract

Deep burns of the scalp responsible of alopecia, used to be a real surgical challenge until apparition of tissue expansion in the 1980's. Tissue expanders are in this way employed in our unit of plastic surgery since more than 20 years, especially for head and neck reconstruction after burns. Thanks to operators and teams experience, incidence of postsurgical complications is still decreasing; in the same time, many improvements have been performed, regarding to surgical technique, choice of expanders (size, location...), or shape of flaps. All those technical details are discussed in order to optimize surgical results.