What should you know about otoplasty keloid?

Otoplasty reshapes or repositions the ear and leaves healing incision sites. A keloid forms when scar tissue continues to build and extends beyond the original wound. It may become firm, smooth, itchy, tender, darker than nearby skin, or gradually larger. A thick scar that stays within the incision may be a hypertrophic scar instead, and an inflamed lump can have other causes. A clinician can assess its border, texture, colour, symptoms, and timing.

Do not cut, squeeze, or repeatedly rub a growing ear scar. Arrange review with the surgeon or a dermatologist, especially if you have had keloids before or the scar is crossing the original wound line. Options may include steroid injection into the skin, pressure-based care, cryotherapy, laser approaches such as pulsed dye or fractional laser treatment, or keloid removal surgery. Excision alone can be followed by another raised scar, so the clinician may combine approaches and plan follow-up.

Contact the surgical team for increasing redness, warmth, drainage, wound separation, fever, or rapidly increasing pain. Prompt specialist review is sensible if the lump enlarges, bleeds, ulcerates, changes colour quickly, or affects the ear opening or hearing. Breathing difficulty or facial swelling after a medicine requires urgent help.

Ask whether the scar is a keloid or another lesion, which treatment fits its size and location, how recurrence will be addressed, and how to protect the incision during healing.