Microtia results in psychological and functional morbidity and total auricle reconstruction offers the affected individual a more cosmetically pleasing ear. The art of dressing postoperatively can be heterogenous between surgeons. This single-centre retrospective study based in China compared complication rate and patient satisfaction in two groups of microtia patients who underwent total auricle reconstruction. Group one had fully dressed reconstructed auricles and flaps, and group two had a modified dressing exposing only the reconstructed auricle with prophylactic erythromycin ointment application to incision to minimise infection. Mean ages of subjects were 10.63±3.17 and 10.31±2.97 respectively. Overall complication rate was 37.5% for group one and 8.89% for group two, with the difference being statistically significant; flap necrosis was the commonest complication for group one and haematoma for group two. Higher satisfaction was observed in group two compared to group one which was statistically significant (97.78% vs. 83.3% respectively). Immediate visualisation of the reconstructed auricle postoperatively minimises patient anxiety which may have led to superior satisfaction rates in group two. One can conclude the lack of infections, significantly fewer flap necrosis rates and higher satisfaction rates in group two supports uptake of this dressing method. However larger cohort data is needed to further validate practice of this method.
Should we leave a reconstructed auricle exposed?
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