[Repair of contracture deformities of the patients with extremely limited donor skin at late postburn stage].
OBJECTIVE
To explore new methods to repair postburn contracture deformities in patients with extremely limited donor skin.


METHODS
Five severely burned patients with extremely limited donor skin but severe deformities were enrolled in the study. The mature and the pliable scarred skin was utilized as the donor site for reconstruction of the postburn deformities. Split-thickness scarred skin was harvested for repair of postburn deformities after the scarred skin was expanded by expander, while thin razor-thin scarred skin with allo-acellular dermal matrix (ADM) was employed for the repair of postburn deformities when skin expansion was not feasible.


RESULTS
All the expanded scarred skin and composite skin grafts survived completely with good function and configuration. The long-term follow-up result was satisfactory, and the grafted skin was similar to that with split-thickness skin grafting.


CONCLUSIONS
It is feasible to employ various split-thickness scarred skin for the reconstruction of postburn deformities. This technique is a new effective procedure for the reconstruction of postburn deformities, especially for those with extreme scarcity of donor site.
Chen
Bi
B
Department of Burns, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an 710032, Shaanxi Province, P.R. China.
Jia
Chi-yu
CY
Xu
Ming-da
MD
Zhu
Xiong-xiang
XX
Wang
Bo-tao
BT
Yao
Qing-jun
QJ
Liu
Ya-ling
YL
D000328:Adult; D002056:Burns / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D002921:Cicatrix / Q000473:pathology; D003286:Contracture / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016038:Skin Transplantation / Q000379:methods*