Dermatologic and Plastic Reconstructive Surgery

Dermatologic and Plastic Reconstructive Surgery

The word plastic comes from a Greek word meaning to form. Plastic or reconstructive surgery is performed to reconstruct or alter congenital or acquired defects to restore or improve the body’s form and function. Often, the terms plastic and reconstructive are used interchangeably. This type of surgery includes closure of wounds, removal of skin tumors, repair of soft tissue injuries or burns, cor-rection of deformities, and repair of cosmetic defects. Plastic surgery can be used to repair many parts of the body and numerous struc-tures, such as bone, cartilage, fat, fascia, mucous membrane, mus-cle, nerve, and cutaneous structures. Bone inlays and transplants for deformities and nonunion can be performed, muscle can be trans-ferred, nerves can be reconstructed and spliced, and cartilage can be replaced. As important as any of these measures is the reconstruc-tion of the cutaneous tissues around the neck and the face; this is usually referred to as aesthetic or cosmetic surgery.