Citation

Mevio E, Mullace M, Facca L, Schettini S. Case Rep. Otolaryngol. 2016; 2016: e7371645.

Affiliation

F&S Prosthesis Workshop, Ariccia, Rome, 00072 Lazio, Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Hindawi Publishing)

DOI

10.1155/2016/7371645

PMID

27200202

PMCID

PMC4855002

Abstract

Acid attacks committed as crimes of passion are unfortunately becoming far from infrequent occurrence. The injuries sustained in such attacks mainly involve the face and trunk, with the acid causing cutaneous and subcutaneous tissue burns that can result in permanent scarring, loss of the nose or external ear, and severe visual impairment. Different surgical solutions have been proposed for reconstruction of the auricle following loss of the ear through traumatic injury or cancer or in patients with congenital defects: surgical reconstruction may involve the insertion of an autogenous rib cartilage framework or the use of a porous polymer material inserted into an expanded postauricular flap. Reconstruction with rib cartilage has given good results but requires more than one surgical step and may be associated with adverse events involving both the donor site and the recipient site, while rejections of polymeric prostheses have been reported following their insertion into expanded postauricular flaps. The use of a titanium dowel-retained silicone prosthesis, in which the dowel is anchored to the temporal bone, is a surgical possibility, indicated particularly in cases of pinna resection due to tumour or auricular scarring following traumatic injury.

Language: en