Combination Treatment of Osmidrosis by Liposuction and Endoscopic Shaver

ABSTRACT

Many surgical procedures have been introduced for treatment of axillary osmidrosis, but some complications, such as symptom recurrence, hematoma, seroma, delayed wound healing, skin flap necrosis and scarring, are not solved yet. Recently introduced liposuction method has several advantages over previous surgical methods, such as increased skin flap vascularity, minimal scarring and bleeding, etc, but the sympton recurrence rate has been reported 10-30%. Liposuction method could remove apocrine glands in subcutaneous tissue effectively, but the glands firmly seated in subdermis remain as the cause of sympton recurrence. For this reason, we employed combination treatment of liposuction and endoscopic subdermal shaving method. From March 1997 to February 2001, a total 71 patients (24 men and 47 women) had been treated with this procedure for bilateral axillary osmidrosis. In our procedure, apocrine glands in subcutaneous tissue were removed by liposuction method and the glands in subdermis were removed by using 4.5 mm incisor blade of endoscopic shaver. Follow-up evaluation period was from 3months to 24 months, and the results were satisfactory. No one suffered from sympton recurrence. Postoperative scar was negligible (below 0.5 cm) and other complications were minimal.