DR. OISHIK SARKAR

PROF. SALIL KUMAR MANDAL

Abstract

In anterior lamellar reconstruction for correcting eyelid deformities, we used a 10-Fr Silicon Foleys Catheter as a cheap accessible tissue-expander device, and evaluated its efficacy for skin grafting.

We admitted patients with cicatricial eyelid deformities, and two-step surgery was done: Expander implantation and Scar-tissue dissection followed by skin-grafting. The area of the skin defect during surgery was compared to skin-graft area measured on post-op visits.

Results show an increase of 3.66% in graft-area after 6 months post-op attributed to proliferation and recruitment from adjacent tissue from pre-operative skin expansion. Compared to the skin-defect area measured under zero-tension intraoperatively the mean net-gain of tissue at 6 months was 38.93% (p < .00). Our study demonstrates that skin-expansion before grafting yields high tissue-gain with superior cosmesis. So, the cheap silicon catheter-expander is a game-changing innovation in the eyelid-reconstruction scene