title: Repair lower face defect with an expanded flap from submental and submandibular region in children.
abstract: Scar and defect in the lower face always lead to serious facial deformity and asymmetry. Conventional method such as skin graft or free flap is hard to obtain a satisfactory outcome. In this article, we present a skin expanding technique. An expanded flap was designed to repair the lower face scar or defect on submental and submandibular regions. A tissue expander was implanted into the region and inflated for 2 to 3 months. After removing the expander, we harvested the flap as a rotation flap to repair the lower facial defect. The longest follow-up period was 3 years. All of the flaps were well matched to the surrounding skin with respect to color, texture, and thickness. An expanded flap on submental and submandibular regions is suitable to repair a lower face defect.
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Plastic Surgery, Nanjing Children's Hospital, Affiliated with Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Weiming
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Jianbing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Jijun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zou
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002921:Cicatrix / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D058752:Free Tissue Flaps; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015361:Rhytidoplasty / Q000379:methods*; D016038:Skin Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D015625:Tissue Expansion Devices