Highlights
Dr Mohan Rangaswamy, Specialist Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon at the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery Hospital in Dubai, alongside the efforts of qualified medical input, performed reconstructive surgery on the girl's arm
A medical team in Dubai succeeded in performing reconstructive surgery of the arm of a 6-year-old Arab girl who suffered from a giant mole on her arm; a rare case that affects 1 in 50,000 births.
Dr Mohan Rangaswamy, Specialist Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon at the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery Hospital in Dubai, alongside the efforts of qualified medical input, performed reconstructive surgery on the girl's arm, through which he succeeded in expanding new skin on the arm.
Dr Mohan uses a modern technique. A tissue expander is used to generate new skin after which it is then transplanted to the areas where the blackened skin has been excised.
He explained that a balloon expander was inserted under the normal skin of the back, and this balloon was injected with saline water at regular intervals. Through this technique the body produces natural skin in the same way that the pregnant body expands and produced new skin. After 4 months, the balloon is removed, and the excess skin is pulled to cover the area from which the mole was removed.
The normal skin was transferred from the back to the arm after removing parts of the mole. The remaining mole of the forearm will be removed and replaced with skin from the thigh using the same technique.
Dr Mohan highlighted that it is important to start treating moles at an early age for a child to benefit from the natural growth of the skin.
He added: The ideal age to start this process is 3 or 4 years, and tissue expansion and skin augmentation can be done twice a year to gradually remove quantities of the blackened skin until it is completely replaced.
The cosmetologist warned against neglecting cases of large moles, as the blackened skin is thin and more prone to tearing, and there are chances of malignant skin cancer when the child reaches their teenage years.
He pointed out that there are risks caused by the old cosmetic procedures used to remove moles, which are based on removing black skin and grafting with another skin: the final result may not be satisfactory for the injured or the parents; the patched skin may not grow with age; the area that has been beautified is exposed to scars.
He said that treating giant moles with a laser is not enough because: the blackened cells are deep within the skin the laser is not effective in removing all pigmentation; and there is no evidence that the laser can prevent the development of cancer cells.
The family of the girl, Hour, said that they were shocked when the girl was born as her arm was covered with a large, black hairy mole. Parents of children suffering from similar cases told us that they were unable to reach any doctor to remove this type of mole.
They stated that the advice they received was to leave the child in this condition until they grew, and then think about performing a skin grafting operation or laser treatment. But our fears of the effects of these operations prompted us to contact a plastic surgeon, Dr. Mohan, who performed many operations for similar cases using tissue expansion to generate genuine skin.
They pointed out that the girl is now happy with the improvement in the shape of her arm and in getting rid of large areas of black hairy skin. A few areas remain for her to remove until her entire arm is a natural color.
