Expanded scarred or skin-grafted forehead flap for nasal reconstruction in severe postburn facial deformity.

Abstract

Loss of the nose is one of the sequelae of the severe facial burn and requires total nasal reconstruction. Many traditional techniques were used but the result was not good in terms of skin color and texture match. For those patients who suffered from full face burn associated with nasal defect but retained smooth atrophic scars or grafted skin on the integrate frontalis, the expansion of the scarred forehead was chosen to reconstruct a new nose. Generally, the patients underwent 3 stages of operation. Fifty-two cases of nasal defects were reconstructed successfully with satisfactory results. The reconstructed nose manifested similar color and texture to the postburn face, and the new noses had no sign of shrinkage, flattening, or collapse. Expanded scarred forehead flap for nasal reconstruction could obtain a new nose with similar skin color and texture to its adjacent postburn face.