A new improvement in the field of surgeries, some surgeries leave scars that may affect the human psychology. The new discovery will help in healing the scars.
Researchers from Stanford University, have created a new type of dressing that removes the stress that reduce scarring. The stress usually happens after removing the sutures, as the natural tension of the surrounding skin starts to pull the two edges of the wound away from one another.
While the incision site will still usually heal, that wound-opening mechanical stress causes excessive scar tissue to form.
The “stress-shielding device” is made from a thin, elastic sheet of silicone, and is applied to wounds after the sutures have been removed. It sticks to the skin via an adhesive, and proceeds to contract evenly across the incision. This causes the two sides to actually be pressed together, not pulled apart.
The dressing was tested on nine human female patients who had just undergone abdominoplasties, also known as tummy tucks. One side of each subject’s abdominal incision was treated with the device, while the other side was not. A panel of three plastic surgeons and three laypeople then viewed the resulting scars, and rated the treated sides as looking better than the untreated.
Larger clinical trials are now planned, in order to include a greater ethnic diversity of subjects, and to determine the optimum amount of tension to use on wounds of different sizes and in different locations.