Can scars be removed?

Scars generally refer to scars. Although the appearance of scars will not affect our physical health, scars can easily affect our appearance. Scars can also bring us psychological pressure. Scars on the body surface can also cause scars to our psychology, so we must find a way to remove scars. Scars are difficult to remove, so many friends doubt whether scars can be removed.

The best way to deal with scars is of course prevention. Once we have a wound, we must deal with it very seriously to avoid the formation of scars after healing. In addition, the suture of skin wounds also needs to be taken seriously.

1. Non-surgical treatment

(1) Pressure therapy is suitable for patients with large scar area who are not suitable for radiotherapy and local drug treatment. The daily downtime should not exceed 30 minutes. This method is not effective for active keloids, but it can reduce the dose of postoperative radiotherapy and injection.

(2) Chemotherapy uses long-acting steroid preparations that are injected directly into the scar to inhibit the excess collagen in the scar and achieve the effect of scar degeneration. The main side effects include skin atrophy, depigmentation, capillary dilation, necrosis, ulcers and Cushing's syndrome, most of which are reversible. Other chemical drugs such as cytotoxins, immunosuppressants and other drug treatments have been reported, but serious systemic side effects limit their application.

(3) Radiotherapy: Early use of electron beam or X-ray irradiation (within 24 hours) after keloid removal can reduce postoperative recurrence of keloid and improve the cure rate.

(4) Laser treatment is suitable for flat scars without obvious functional impairment, and for scattered, uneven, depressed scars of varying sizes left after healing of smallpox, chickenpox, and acne.

(5) There are different reports on the efficacy of other treatments for hypertrophic scars and keloids, such as cryotherapy, wax therapy, iontophoresis, and ultrasound, and there is a lack of large-scale case controls and follow-up.

2. Surgery

(1) Scar excision followed by tension-reducing fine suture is a commonly used and increasingly sophisticated surgical method for scar treatment, and is mostly used for scars of smaller areas. During the operation, the tension of the incision is fully reduced, the operation is performed delicately, and secondary damage is reduced to reduce the degree of postoperative scar hyperplasia, and the clinical effect is definite and obvious.

(2) Dermabrasion is a surgical method that involves grinding the epidermis and superficial dermis of the skin to improve irregularities on the skin surface, making it smooth and flat and similar in color. It is suitable for superficial scars left over from acne, smallpox, chickenpox, shingles, eczema, trauma, burns or surgery. If necessary, it can be performed simultaneously with scar surgical excision, and the effect is better than simple grinding.

(3) Scar release and local reshaping: For smaller, tense, linear or webbed scars, the scar can be removed and then a skin flap formed with the surrounding normal skin tissue is used to repair the skin defect at the scar site through cross-replacement.

(4) Scar excision and free skin grafting Larger hypertrophic scars can be surgically removed, and then free skin grafts are cut from normal parts of the body and transplanted to the scar surface to repair the wound and restore skin function. However, the color of the transplanted skin is often quite different from that of the surrounding skin. In addition, contracture is prone to occur after surgery, which can cause deformation of surrounding tissues and organs or induce functional disorders.

(5) Scar excision flap transplantation: Since the flap contains a large amount of subcutaneous fat tissue, it can not only be used to repair skin defects after scar excision, but also has the function of protecting deep tissues. The commonly used expander technology currently also belongs to flap transplantation. By burying the expander under the normal skin around the scar, after several months of expansion, excess skin can be "grown" to repair the scar.

Above we introduced what scars are. We know that although scars will not affect our physical health, they will damage our image and bring us psychological pressure, so we must find a way to remove scars. The above article introduces in detail the methods of scar removal.