Reconstructive Plastic Surgery is performed to correct functional impairments caused by:
• burns
• traumatic injuries, such as facial bone fractures
• congenital abnormalities, such as cleft lip, or cleft palate
• developmental abnormalities
• infection or disease
• removal of cancers or tumours, such as a mastectomy for a breast cancer, a head and neck cancer and an abdominal invasion by a colon cancer
Reconstructive plastic surgery is usually performed to improve function, but it may be done to approximate a normal appearance.
Common reconstructive surgical procedures are: breast reconstruction for women who have had a mastectomy, cleft lip and palate surgery, contracture surgery for burn survivors, creating a new outer ear when one is congenitally absent, and closing skin and mucosa defects after removal of tumors in the head and neck region.
Plastic surgeons developed the use of microsurgery to transfer tissue for coverage of a defect when no local tissue is available. Tissue flaps comprised of skin, muscle, bone, fat or a combination, may be removed from the body, moved to another site on the body and reconnected to a blood supply by suturing arteries and veins as small as 1-2 mm in diameter.
The most common reconstructive procedures are tumor removal, laceration repair, scar repair, hand surgery and breast reduction.