Patient - Reconstruction

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Click on an image below to see a larger version.

Before

Now and then a patient comes in with a real problem that, fortunately, has a simple solution. This lady had a skin cancer removed from the back of her ear using Moh's by a dermatologist. This left her with a large area of exposed cartilage. She was sent to an ear, nose, and throat specialist for reconstruction and he just pinned the ear to her head. This worked and healed the ear, but left her with nowhere to put the left arm of her glasses, which now constantly slipped. I would have done something different. She came to me to see if I could fix it. I told her I could. 

After

I carefully detached her ear from her head, taking care to leave some fat, which had now grown onto the cartilage on the back of the ear. The ENT doctor's procedure while not ideal, allowed me to do this and now I had a surface on the back of the ear that would easily accept a skin graft. I covered the entire raw area with a piece of full thickness skin taken from just below her collar bone. The graft healed perfectly, her ear now had a nice sulcus for her glasses. She is seen with her glasses in place. Not only was this a simple operation that solved a real problem for her, it was fun!