I'm asking a question for my Aunt Rosemary who is seven months past her partial glossectomy and left sided neck dissection. Aunt Ro is extremely prone to developing scar tissue. (She has had more than a dozen belly surgeries in her life to try to keep her Endometriosis under control, only to wind up with everything from her lungs on down glued together with adhesions). Her surgery was successful and she is still cancer free as of now, however, her tongue has become bound down on the left side (the side they reconstructed) with adhesions to the point where she can barely move her tongue well enough to speak. It is beginning to also cause her a great deal of pain. She is scheduled for another surgery to simply add "a pleat" of sorts to free up her tongue. She is worried though (and so are we all) that this new surgery will create even more scar tissue. After all, what's to prevent it? She also has alot of adhesions at the former site of her trache tube as well as at the site of her PEG.

Does anyone know what it is that makes someone so prone to developing adhesions? And secondly, is there anything that the surgeons can do during this next procedure to try to prevent the formation of new or additional adhesions? She almost doesn't want to have the surgery if it will only help her situation temporarily. Any information or advice would be appreciated.