Laser in Conjunction with Endoscopic Forehead Surgery for Soft Tissue Masses

Purpose: The use of the endoscopic techniques in plastic surgery has been a significant turn around of the traditional techniques. However, the combination of the laser with laser surgery has been very slow. Method: Between January 1996 and January2003, 42 patients have been treated for removal of benign tumor. 18 males and 24 females. Their age ranged from 5 to 64 years. The laser that we are using is Surgilase 150XJ CO2 laser system in connection with the flexible FIBERLASE (Sharplan, NJ, USA). Our endoscopy instrumentation is a 4 mm 30? angle endoscope (Snoden Pancer, USA). The dissection can be performed through a video dissection. The basic instrumentation consists of elevators, nerve hook, retractor and endoscopic scissors. Suction of the smoke cause by laser evaporization should also be prepared. Result: After laser in conjunction with endoscopic surgery for the patients in each group, the follow-up period ranged from 6 months to 2 years and 6months with average of one year and 7 months. In our retrospective review, the early complications of these 42 patients are scalp alopecia, scar alopecia, numbness, ecchyrnosis. There is no hematoma case happened in each group. In the evaluation of the final results, scar alopecia can be noted. Conclusion: Pulse CO2 laser in conjunction with endoscopic surgery enable plastic surgeon to work at a distance through small incisions without bleeding. Visible scares are reduced and recovery time is diminished. Key Word: endoscopy, laser, forehead, soft masses