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SINGAPORE: Skin grafts are fairly common surgical procedures, but are not without risks. This is why most badly burnt patients seek treatment at the Singapore General Hospital's Burns Centre as doctors said recovery is influenced by the facility and the level of patient care.
A heroic act of saving his son from an oncoming truck seared off nearly a fifth of Mr Ang's skin and some of his muscles, resulting in him having to undergo extensive skin grafting.
Leslie Kuek, plastic surgeon, Gleneagles Medical Centre, said: "Essentially, all the skin on the entire leg was lost, so we had to cover a huge area of skin loss. In terms of percentage, one entire leg is equivalent to 18 per cent to 20 per cent of the entire body surface area. So you can imagine the huge amount of skin we had to get in order to provide coverage.
"This created a lot of problems because skin essentially is a protective organ that prevents bacteria from entering the body so when you have lost your skin, you have lost the ability to protect yourself from infection and contamination."
Mr Ang's grafted skin came from his upper thighs, but skin grafting for face is trickier, with issues like colour matching and skin thickness.
Another burn patient is a 40-year-old woman from Vietnam who had acid thrown on her face. She could not close her eyes for seven months until she had a skin graft on her eyelids.
Ivor Lim, plastic surgeon, Camden Medical Centre, said: "It is difficult, by and large, to get skin which will match with parts of the face accurately. For example, if you want to resurface skin on an eyelid I would opt for skin from the back of the ear. And for the tip of the nose, I would use skin from the side of the face or from the hairline."
Even after the graft is done, the patient must take great care to keep the graft in place.
"The secret is how to ensure that the skin, which you have moved from one part of your body to the other, stays stuck where it is put. Skin graft can be affected by things like infection. If you allow the skin to move too much, it breaks the blood supply or accumulates fluid underneath," said Dr Lim.
Yio Chu Kang MP Seng Han Thong, who is recovering at the Singapore General Hospital, suffered nearly 15 per cent burns in an attack on Sunday when a man threw thinner at him and set him on fire.
Fortunately, not all burnt areas require grafting.
"If it's very deep, which is usually the case when you have a fire burn, the procedure is relatively straight forward, I would say that his chance of recovery would be fairly good," said Dr Kuek.
- CNA/so
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