Improvement of Scar Contractures with Ablative Fractional CO2 Laser Treatments: A Case Report

He Fang, Kaiyang LV, Fang Zhang, Pengfei Luo and Zhaofan Xia

Department of Burn Surgery, Second Military Medical University Affiliated Changhai Hospital, China

^*Correspondance to: Zhaofan Xia 

 PDF  Full Text DOI: 10.25107/2474-1647.1604

Abstract

Scar contractures from burn injuries often performed after the burn wounds healed, especially when the burn wounds involving the joints. Although many therapeutic modalities have been used to the administration of scar contractures, a great number of burn patients suffered from dysfunction of major joints involved by burn injury. Ablative fractional CO2 laser (AFCL) treatment has become a more popular therapeutic procedure for burn scars in the past decades. This report presents a case of left knee joint scar contracture treatment with AFCL after 79% total body surface area (TBSA) burn. A 20-year-old male patient underwent 79% TBSA flame burn. The burn wounds were healed about 1-month post injury and classical anti-scar treatments including pressure garments, onion extract cream and silicone gel and sheeting were applied as soon as the entire wounds were healed. However, the major joints (both elbow joints and left knee joint) developed to contracture about 6 months later and the activities of daily living, such as dressing, ambulation, bathing and eating, were affected by the contractures of joints. AFCL treatment was then applied and the function of involved joints improved significantly and the pruritus was also alleviated. In summary, AFCL treatments can improve burn scar contracture dramatically. Further researches are needed to define optimal parameters of AFCL and the mechanisms.

Keywords

Burn injuries; Laser treatments; Scar

Cite the article

Fang H, Kaiyang LV, Zhang F, Luo P, Xia Z. Improvement of Scar Contractures with Ablative Fractional CO2 Laser Treatments: A Case Report. Clin Surg. 2017; 2: 1604.