The Scar Wars Project: A Pilot Study Evaluating The Effectiveness And Safety Of A Compressive Device Intended To Prevent Recurrence Of Keloid Scars After Surgical Resection
Thomas Lihoreau1,2, Brice Chatelain3, Aurélien Louvrier1,3, Christophe Meyer1,3, Lionel Pazart1,2,4, Guillaume Besch1,2,5, Gwenaël Rolin1,6
BACKGROUND
Management of keloid scars is difficult and random. Different treatments are proposed, ranging from the injection of corticosteroids, to cryotherapy and the administration of anticancer molecules (Ud-Din et al., 2013). At present no treatment, or combination of treatments, have been described as effective. The classical management remaining intra keloid resection, it too often leads to a more serious recurrence of keloid in 45 to 100% of cases (Andrews et al., 2016). For many years, home-made compression techniques have been described in the literature to prevent recurrence of keloids after surgery (Brent et al., 1978, Vachiramon et al., 2004, Chang et al., 2005, Yigit et al. Coll., 2009; Park and Chang, 2013; Tanaydin et al., 2016), especially at the ear lobe, area of frequent occurrence of this type of pathological scar, often after piercing. The effectiveness of these means of compression reduces the post-surgical relapse of the earlobe keloid to a range of 10 to 30% (Vachiramon et al., 2004, Park and Chang, 2013, Tanaydin et al. 2016). Correlation between keloid recurrence of the ear and discomfort in wearing a device has been also correlated (Tanaydin et al, 2016), which may be related to poor application of pressure at the ear. One of the causes being also the lack of solid clinical trials on the subject (Louis and Gracia, 2010).
CONCLUSION
This pilot study presented encouraging results on the efficacy and safety of our prototype. The next steps will consist in finding a manufacturer for this potential medical device, and confirm these results on a larger scale. The original and multimodal approach of the SCAR WARS project will participate in the understanding of the pathology, and provide perspectives for new areas of
improvement in keloid management. Project financed by CHU Besançon grant: APICHU3A2016 n° API/2016/75 ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03312166 – Compressive Device to Prevent Keloid Scars Recurrence (SCARWARS)
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