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Volume 13 Issue 7 (July) 2024

Original Articles

A Study of Long-Term Outcome of Split Thickness Skin Grafts at Receipt Site: An Observational Study
Mukul Dhabhai, Kavita Choudhary, Arun Goel, Anant Vyas

Background:In any busy plastic surgery practice, one is almost always dealing with patients with skin loss. Skin grafting covers a wound, accelerates healing and minimises scarring. Skin grafts are used in a variety of clinical situations, such as raw areas following full thickness burn injury, post-burn contractures and other post-burn reconstructive problems. Once the graft has ‘taken’ well i.e., survived and stabilized over a period of a couple of weeks or more, several changes occur during the next several months to a year or so till it matures. However, what happens to the skin graft in the subsequent years in future with respect to various parameters for example hypertrophy, abnormal pigmentation, durability and aesthetic appearances, return of sensation, etc., have not been studied adequately in the long run. Objectives:To study the long-term outcome of graft maturation with respect to various changes that take place during this period after which a split skin graft is said to be fully matured and no longer expected to change Material and Methods: Cross-sectional observational study conducted in the Department of Burns and Plastic Surgery, Lok Nayak Hospital and associated Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi for 12 months among 53 patients. After taking informed consent, a questionnaire of detailed history and present subjective symptoms and objective findings on clinical examination was recorded in the proforma. The prevalence of various clinical parameters, symptoms as well as signs, e.g., itching, ulceration, hypertrophy, return of sensation, hair pattern, need for lubrication, colour changes (hyperemia/congestion), pigmentation (hyper/normal/ hypo) and appearance, etc. at the recipient site of split skin graft after five years of transplantation was recorded and analysed using SPSS v25. Results: Skin was healthy, and colour was normal in all the patients. Hair growth was absent in 73.6% patients. Sensation was normal in 58.5% and decreased in 41.5% of study participants. Wrinkles were absent from all the patients. Pinch ability was good in 81.1% and moderate in 7.6% of patients. Mobility over the bed was present in 94.4% of patients. Hyperpigmentation was present in 16.9% of patients. Junctional hypertrophy was absent in all cases. Conclusion: Maturation phase after a split skin grafting surgery is a long-drawn process taking several years (3-5 years or so) during which, several changes toward improvement / betterment take place in the graft.

 
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