Reconstruction of anterior auricular conchal defect after malignancy excision: Revolving-door flap versus full-thickness skin graft
Section snippets
Materials and methods
Between March 2003 and January 2007, at the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery of the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, patients affected by T1 and T2 non-melanotic skin cancer (NMSC) and T1 melanoma (according to TNM classification) of the conchal skin of the anterior surface of the ear were evaluated to be included in a prospective study.
Patients were informed about the pathology they were affected with, the indications for excision of the lesion, the reconstructive options and
Results
A total of 40 patients were included in the study (28 male and 12 female) with an average age of 64.7 years (range: 47–84 years). Of the total, 30 patients had BCC, nine had SCC and one had melanoma of the ear. These tumours were located on the anterior conchal skin of the external ears. Tumour stage was T1 for 20 BCCs, nine SCCs and one melanoma. Stage T2 was for 10 BCCs. Before surgical excision, the lesions lasted from 3 months to 20 months with a mean of 5.3 months. Surgical defect size
Discussion
Crikelair12 outlined the goals for external ear reconstruction as providing skin of appropriate thickness and texture, framework for support and keeping the reconstruction as simple as possible. Ladocsi13 added another goal: the appearance of the reconstructed ear should not be distracting when viewed from a conversational distance. The external auditory canal must have an adequate size for its normal self-cleaning and manual cleaning when necessary.14
The surgical management of localised
Conflicts of interest/funding
None.
Ethical approval
The research protocol was approved by the local Ethical Committee or equivalent.
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