SCALP EXPANSION FOR RECONSTRUCTION OF POSTBURN ALOPECIA IN CHILDREN: TWO CASE REPORTS

Abstract

It is obvious that adults expect to lose some hair with the age, but hair loss in children can be considered as an alarm, especially when they show psychological problems because of the bald spots or thin hair. However, burns of the head region remain very frequent in children; they are mainly caused by scalds with boiling fluids during home accidents. This leads to severe sequelae, post burn alopecia. Several reconstruction methods are described in the literature (hair grafting, serial excision and local scalp flaps, scalp expansion); the two firsts methods require small burn area and good scar quality. However, in our experience, scalp burn in children result in large surface of poor quality alopecia scar making tissue expansion the most effective procedure in this indication. We report two cases of burn alopecia reconstruction using expanded flap of scalp in 8 year old children. We describe the scar characteristics, the 2 stages procedure of scalp expansion and post-operative period follow up and the results. In the end, these two cases illustrate perfectly the effectiveness of tissue expansion in this region with a good cosmetic results and positive psychological and social effect.