Plastic Surgery

Plastic surgery is a general term for operative manual and instrumental treatment which is performed for functional or aesthetic reasons. The word "plastic" derives from the Greek plastikos meaning to mold or to shape; its use here is not connected with modern plastics.

The principal areas of plastic surgery include two broad fields.
Reconstructive surgery, including microsurgery, focuses on undoing or masking the destructive effects of trauma, surgery or disease. Reconstructive surgery may include closing defects with flaps—that is, by moving tissue from other parts of the body.

Cosmetic (or aesthetic) surgery is most often performed in order to change features the patient finds unflattering. In many cases, however, there are medical reasons (for example, breast reduction when orthopedic problems are present).

Reconstructive surgery

Ultimately, plastic surgeons have championed the use of microsurgical techniques to transfer remote tissue. They have for the past several decades been able to connect blood vessels that may be as small as 1-2mm in diameter to reperfuse the transferred tissue, thereby allowing coverage of a soft tissue defect when no local tissue is available.

Common cases of reconstructive surgery are breast reconstruction for women who have had a mastectomy, facial- and contracture surgery for burn survivors, closing skin- or mucosa defects after removal of tumors in the head and neck region.

There is a definite gray area between reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. For instance a "bat ear" correction is not considered cosmetic surgery, even though having prominent ears is not a debilitating or dangerous condition.

Plastic surgery is a broad field, and may be subdivided further.

Plastic surgery training and approval by the American Board of Plastci Surgery includes mastery of the following as well:
Craniofacial surgery mostly revolves around the treatment of pediatric congenital anomalies, such as cleft lip and palate, craniosynostosis, and other disturbances in facial growth and development. Because these children have multiple issues, they are often taken care of in an interdisciplinary approach which include oral surgeons, otolaryngologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, geneticists.

Hand surgery is a field that has some overlap with general surgeons and orthopedic surgeons. Plastic surgeons receive full training in hand surgery, with some trainees deciding even to do an additional full-year hand fellowship afterwards (this fellowship can also be pursued by general surgeons and orthopedic surgeons). However, hand reconstructvie surgery is particularly suited to plastic reconstruction surgeons, as when there is hand traumatically amputated that requires a "replant" operation, plsatic surgeons are trained to reconstruct all aspects to save the hand: blood vessels, nerves, tendons, muscle, bone. Many hand operations (such as reconstruction of injuries, replantations, rheumatoid sugrery and surgery of congenital defects) are performed by plastic surgeons.

Maxillofacial surgery (surgery involving the jaw) is an important aspect of lpastic surgry. This field is shared by both the plastic surgeons and the oral surgeons, with each field contributing each other in order to benefit this area of the body.
rconstructive, reconsturctive, reconstrutive, recnostructive

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• What is APR

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Plastic Surgery".