A Randomized Split-Scar Study of Intraoperative Treatment of Surgical Wound Edges to Minimize Scarring

AUTHORS: David M. Ozog, MD¹; Ronald L. Moy, MD²

RESEARCH SITES: ¹Department of Derma­tology, Henry Ford Hos­pital, Detroit, MI, USA; ²Moy-Fincher Medical Group, Beverly Hills, CA, USA; ³David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

PUBLICATION: JAMA Dermatology Vol. 147 No. 9, pp. 1108-1110

YEAR: 2011

For ablative resurfacing of surgical scars, the recommended time frame for treatment has remained relatively constant at 8 weeks postoperatively.1 However, Strauss and Kligman2 were aware as early as 1956 that dermabrasion to the wound edges at time of closure would improve the final appearance of sutured wounds. In 1980, Caver3 reported that dermabrasion to wound edges at the time of surgery had been used successfully in his practice for over 20 years. In recent years, 2 studies using ablative laser resurfacing of wounds at the time of closure have shown promising trends.4,5 Ablative fractional resurfacing has been shown to quantitatively improve atrophic surgical and traumatic scars.

The improved safety profile of fractional carbon dioxide lasers vs their fully ablative counterparts and the ability to treat nonfacial sites makes them well suited for scar treatments. Our study aims to quantify the improvements resulting from intraoperative fractional carbon dioxide laser treatment. To our knowledge, this is the first prospective fractional laser study for this indication and the first to evaluate nonfacial sites.