Hi everyone.

My father was operated for verrucous carcinoma of the oral cavity a year back. Forehead flap was used for reconstruction. Following the surgery, the histopathology showed clear margins and all the resected neck nodes came out to be negative. Because of the same, radiation was not given , after a thorough discussion between the concerned departments.

Approximately 3 months following the surgery, he started to have hair growth on the inner side of the flap inside the oral cavity. Our surgeon suggested regular clipping and hair removal using forceps to pull out the hair. We have been doing the same since then almost on a weekly basis. However there has been some discharge on and off from one of the stitched margins from the outer side of the flap, probably because of ingrowing hair in the stitch line.

A follow up CT done after 7 months showed no evidence of malignancy or regrowth.

Because of the hair growth, one of the stitch lines is always having some discharge on and off in mild amount and therefore complete healing is not taking place.

Our Plastic surgeon suggested exploration of that suture line and we got the same done. About a month following that , there wasn't any discharge. However again now there's pus discharge from the same stitch line although from a different site.

It's been a year since the surgery. The rate of hair growth has not shown any regression.

Kindly suggest if anyone has any similar experience on what should be the next course of action. Any permanent way of removal of hair since it's hindering the stitch line to return to normalcy and is cosmetically also disturbing ??

I read somewhere about laser therapy for permanent hair removal, does anyone have any idea of the pros and cons of the same? Can it be an option in this case? And would it affect healing?
Are there any other options for the same?

Thank you.
An anxious daughter.