Reconstruction Surgery For Burns
Reconstruction surgery is necessary to recover from the scourge of burns, trauma, infection, tumour, or diseases. Reconstruction surgery can be as simple as covering a wound or as complicated as a series of planned procedures and surgeries to reconstruct a limb.
The type of reconstruction surgery for burns depends on the depth of the wound, affected area, and severity of muscular, skeletal, and nerves damage. For recommending any burn-reconstruction procedure, our burn specialist doctor in Pune analyses the burns and then plans a series of procedures for properly reconstructing the burnt site.
What Happens During The Burn Reconstruction Process?
The burn reconstruction process can be both operative and non-operative. Some non -operative treatments involve massage, wearing pressure garments, or topical therapies. However, the operative surgeries include some intensive procedures that aim at repairing the skin by a trained plastic surgeon.
Different Types Of Burn Surgery
The burn reconstruction surgery is planned to keep the aforementioned factors in mind. Then, depending on the severity of the burns, the different types of surgery are devised to improve the appearance and get optimum results by restoring the skin’s functionality and preventing infections.
Debridement Or Simply Cleaning The Wound
Debridement is a pre-surgery procedure that cleans burn tissues, vascularized bones, and dead skin layers. It is an important step to access the wound ad surgery upon it.
Skin Grafts ∙ Skin Substitutes ∙ Xenografts
Skin grafts are also called alternate skin or xenografts. There are two types of skin grafts, namely:
A temporary skin graft- is a temporary cover for burnt skin to protect skin from infection, further damage and relieve skin. These temporary grafts are made of medically sterilised skin or synthetic substance that is withdrawn later.
Permanent skin grafts are often done on burn survivors enduring deep, partial, or thick burns. These permanent skin grafts, once placed in, promote natural healing of skin and minimise scars. In addition, the skin used for graft can be retracted from another part of the victim’s body which becomes the donor site.
After this, the person is carefully kept in hospitalisation in intensive care with immobilisation so the skin grafts may grow blood vessels and become natural skin.
Dermabrasion ∙ Surgical Skin Planing
Dermabrasion aims to improve the appearance of scars resulting from burn injury. In the latest dermabrasion procedures, the laser removes the raised part and shrinks the burn scars. It is performed by medical experts on an in-patient or out-patient basis.
Contracture Release Surgery
Burn contractures are hardened skin layers over a burn wound that prevent complete mobility of the affected region. Contractures usually develop due to poor burn wound management or after a split-thickness skin grafting procedure.
In contracture release surgery, the surgeon selects healthy, flexible donor skin free flaps with matching size, texture, colour, and pliability. The free flaps are harvested and replaced over the contracture region to improve its flexibility and appearance. If the contracture wound is small, the surgeon may use adjacent skin flaps to minimise differences in skin characteristics.
After the contracture release recovery, the patient may need physiotherapy to mobilise the joints and splints to preserve the range of motion (ROM).
Dr. Amit Mulay is a certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon, practising as a burn specialist in Pune for over a decade now. The burn traumas are life devastating incidents; hence Dr. Mulay affirmatively aims to provide the best possible reconstruction surgeries to burn patients.