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.

Welcome to OCF! Im sorry to read about what your father has been thru. You have come to the right place for info and support.

Hair growth on free flaps is very common. The free flap is transplanted tissue that has always grown hair. Over the years different members have commented on this happened to them. Im sorry, I havent been thru the type of surgery as your father. I cant think of anyone who ever did anything about their hair growth. At least nobody ever mentioned any solution to their hair issue. Im not familiar enough with laser hair removal to be able to say if it is worth looking into. Have an open mind and get a few opinions including hear what the family doc and your fathers ENT have to say about it. Since your father has not had radiation, his healing should not be compromised.

Please let us know how your father makes out and any info you find about the lasering of hair on the free flap. Best wishes!!

Hi !!

Thank you for the information, and a ton for the support! Yes we have our research goin on..as to what can help

Kindly let me know if you get to know something regarding this.

Also I think I have posted this under the wrong forum..apologies for the same...so I ll post this in the after-treatment issues forum.

Are there surgeons(general/onco/ENT surgeons) in the group who can give some insight into this issue ??

Regards!!

Flamez, your post is in the correct section. Anyone who joins our group is encouraged to make their first post an introductory post so we can welcome the new member and get to know them.

Our site gets thousands of views every day. Every single post on our forum gets read many, many times. Having a duplicate post in another section will not help you to get to the bottom of how to manage the hair growth or get any more replies. It gets confusing when there are 2 identical posts going in different sections. Its hard to follow along when you have different replies on each post, especially for newer members or someone who is not familiar with our site and procedures. Duplicate posts will be removed to avoid confusion. Bottom line... please do not make duplicate posts!

Thank you!

Oh.. alright..

Just to clarify, I had no intention whatsoever of making a duplicate post to garner replies..just did it as I felt it was posted under the wrong forum.

My apologies for the same!!

Thanks and regards!