Background: Surgical treatment of axillary bromhidrosis or hyperhidrosis involves the removal of apocrine glands. There are several methods to eliminate apocrine glands; however, many methods reported significant rates of skin necrosis. To avoid this problem while preserving comparable results, we used a modified method sparing several subcutaneous septa, which successfully avoided skin necrosis completely in our series of 19 consecutive cases.
Methods: This is a prospective case series in a single center by a single surgeon. Unlike other series using suction-curettage shaver, we preserved some septa. The skin flaps between septa were approximately shaved as thin as 2 mm. The patients rated their smell on a 0-10 numeric rating scale (NRS-11) preoperatively and postoperatively. The results were analyzed with Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test.
Results: A total of 19 consecutive patients were included. The mean degree of preoperative and postoperative smell on the NRS-11 scale was 7.200 and 2.825, respectively. There was only one patient who developed postoperative ecchymosis. No other complications, such as skin necrosis, hematoma, or infection were found.
Conclusions: We modified the suction-curettage cartilage shaver to eliminate the complications. Our method reveals a satisfying result, and there were no significant complications.
Keywords: bromhidrosis; osmidrosis; palmar hyperhidrosis; suction curettage.
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