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Skin grafting provides comparable results to local flaps in certain nasal defects

Nasal defects from Mohs surgery can be corrected by skin grafting in single-stage reconstruction with outcomes similar to local flaps, according to research from JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery.

The retrospective review included 103 patients who underwent nasal reconstruction with either skin graft (n=39) or local flap (n=64) by a single surgeon.

Four independent raters (two plastic surgeon fellows and two laypersons) used a visual analog scale to rate the cosmetic outcome as 1, excellent; 2, very good; 3, good; 4, fair; and 5, poor.

The raters were blinded to reconstruction technique.

The mean VAS scores were 2.18 for the skin graft group and 2.12 for the flap group.

The 39 skin graft patients underwent 11 postoperative triamcinolone acetonide injections and 8 postoperative dermabrasion sessions.

The 64 local flap patients underwent 259 triamcinolone acetonide injections and 13 dermabrasion sessions postoperatively, in addition to 39 staged surgical procedures.

The flap patients had a significantly greater number of triamcinolone acetonide injections, according to researchers, but there was no difference in dermabrasion rates.

In certain nasal defects, skin graft can be a viable reconstructive option that provides aesthetic outcomes similar to local flap procedures and with fewer additional postoperative interventions, according to researchers. -by Abigail Sutton

Disclosure: The researchers reported no relevant financial disclosures.