Estudio de los trastornos postabdominoplastia de la sensibilidad cutánea superficial

Abstract

Abdominoplasty is one of the most common cosmetic procedures performed in Plastic Surgery. One of the drawbacks that may arise after conclusion of the surgery is the reduction or loss of skin sensation in the abdominal wall as a result of skin flap dissection occurring in 57-72% of patients. Our objective is to determine the sensory disturbances that occur on superficial skin in the abdomen after abdominoplasty and the time needed to recover sensitivity after surgery. We conducted an observational, prospective cohort study which included 50 female patients, which were divided into two groups: a control group which did not go through abdominoplasty consists of 20 women aged 24-40 years (mean of 29.6 years) without previous abdominal surgery, comorbidities of the skin or systemic illness, and a study group with 30 patients aged 22-57 years (mean 36.2 years) who underwent abdominoplasty. The evaluation of the abdominal wall was performed for different parameters of the superficial skin sensitivity. We used a system of division of the abdomen in 12 areas, we examined touch, pain, temperature (hot and cold) and discrimination of two points before surgery, 3 months and 6 months after abdominoplasty. All our patients had some impairment of sensitivity compared with the control group. All modalities of sensation assessed at 3 and 6 months in the area 8 had no response to the stimulus except for the superficial touch that was present in 33.3% at 6 months; the area 5 presented an improvement to stimuli in evaluation at 6 months but did not recover the sensitivity to heat. We conclude that after an abdominoplasty there are some alterations in the sensitivity and severity of these are variable depending on the region of the abdomen being the most affected hypogastric area followed by mesogastric area, where all modalities of sensation were affected except touch, which is the first to recover but not entirely. So we should explain to patients about this inconvenience, which occurs consistently with this procedure.