Woman With Deep Facial Burn Scars Gets Total Makeover

A 23-year-old woman who had suffered major burns that left deep scars on her face, got a complete makeover at Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital in the national capital. According to hospital authorities, the woman who hails from Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh, had suffered serious burns in her childhood. She had to undergo two facial reconstruction surguries to get a new layer of skin removing all her scars. Dr Sameek Bhattacharya, Professor of Plastic Surgery Department at RML, said in this case, the team of surgeons opted for a process called tissue expansion -- a procedure under that enables the body to grow extra skin.

"Skin movement is also fashioned in a very particular way. It involves proper planning so that the ultimate scar lines fall in areas where it is not much visible," Dr Bhattacharya noted.

"There is another procedure called skin grafting in which skin is peeled off from a part of patient's body to cover up the removed scar area. But in this case we decided to go for tissue expansion procedure which we felt was more suited," he further added.

In this surgical procedure, a silicone balloon expander is inserted under the skin near the area to be repaired and then gradually filled with saline or carbon dioxide over time, causing the skin to stretch and grow.

The surgery was conducted in two parts. In the first one, the tissue expansion was done and then every week the saline injection was given. By the end of two-three months when adequate expansion is complete, the next surgery is conducted in which the advanced skin is expanded over the scar region to cover it up.

"It was a very standard procedure surgery and not a complicated one. The first surgery took around one-and-half hours while the second one took approximately two hours," Dr Bhattacharya added.