title: Composite skin grafts for basal cell carcinoma defects of the nose.
abstract: Basal cell carcinoma is the most frequent cutaneous cancer of the nose and is characterized by its local spreading and exceptionally rare tendency to metastasize. Since a significant advantage has been seen in surgery compared to other treatments, surgical excision ensuring the highest chance of cure is frequently employed. Excision defects of the nose may be covered with either local flap or a full-thickness skin graft. In resurfacing such defects following excision of basal cell carcinomas, we favor the technique of composite-skin grafting which involves the harvesting of composite-skin graft including the epidermis, dermis and superficial layers of subcutaneous tissue to obtain the required thickness in the recipient site. This technique was used for defects remaining after the excision of basal cell carcinomas in a series of 15 patients. The areas involved were lateral nasal region (5 cases), nasal tip (4 cases), dorsum (3 cases), alar lobule (2 cases), and soft triangle (1 case). The mean follow-up was 14.2 months. The color, texture and thickness of the composite-skin graft harvested from the preauricular site and the neck compare favorably with the skin of the nose region. Satisfactory results, both clinically and in patient appreciation, have been obtained in both the reconstruction site and the appearance of the donor site in all patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Leopold - Franzens University Clinic Innsbruck, Austria. rgurunluoglu@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Raffi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gurunluoglu
authors.forename: Maziar
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shafighi
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gardetto
authors.forename: Hildegunde
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Piza-Katzer
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002280:Basal Cell Carcinoma / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009669:Nose Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D019651:Plastic Surgery Procedures / Q000379:methods*; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D016038:Skin Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome