Wounds from trauma and invasive surgery often leave scars on the skin that can be very obvious and more or less unsightly. Scars are practically impossible to erase, we say straight away, but they can be greatly improved with specific treatments.

Let us begin by explaining what a scar is: it is thetissue that fills wounds and losses of substance in tissues and organs.Scar tissue forms whenever there is an interruption in the continuity of the skin following a pathological or traumatic event.

There are basically two types of pathological scars: the keloid and the hypertrophic scar.

A keloid is a thick, reddened, itchy or painful neoformation that originates from a scar, but develops beyond its confines. Keloids form very rarely, usually on the chest, ear pinnae and shoulders.

In hypertrophic scarring, unlike keloids, the excess scar tissue remains within the confines of the scar, which is reddened and raised. It is often accompanied by itching and sometimes local pain.

The quality of scars that form following traumatic events or surgery depends more on how the skin tends to heal than on the type of event that led to their formation. For example, in general, individuals with a fair complexion are more likely to have good quality scars than individuals with a dark complexion, while in certain regions of the body, scars tend by constitution to be more prominent.

Unfortunately, as we said at the beginning, scars are permanent marks that cannot be removed by any surgical technique, but only improved through medical and surgical treatments. In any case, before resorting to scar revision surgery, it is necessary to wait about a year after the event that caused the scar. During this period, the scar undergoes numerous transformations until it matures into a definitive conformation. The type of surgical technique adopted by the specialist to improve the scars to be treated varies depending on the type of scar, its width and the body region concerned.

Aesthetic medicine and plastic surgery use treatments such as dermabrasion, peelings and laser treatments, and special surgical techniques to improve the appearance of scars so that they are almost invisible.

The surgical procedures for scar revision are 'intralesional' excision (the surgeon acts on the scar tissue without removing it completely) and complete excision (i.e. removal of the scar).

Finally, a widely used technique concerns regenerative medicine, the latest frontier of medicine and surgery for cellular reparative mechanisms. This is based on the use of autologous tissues (from the organism itself) to promote reparative mechanisms. The procedures used make use of lipostructure or lipofilling techniques, which consist of transferring fat cells from certain sites in the body (harvest sites) into the scar to decisively improve its appearance.

The results that can be obtained with the medical or surgical treatment of scars are very variable, as they are determined by the type of scar, the treatment implemented and the physical characteristics of the patient.