One of the people hurt in the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) inferno became the nation’s first patient to undergo a skin graft using scrotal skin, which was transplanted onto his right knee.
According to Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital, 22-year-old Huang Po-wei (黃博煒) sustained second and third-degree burns to 95 percent of his body in the June 27 blast and ensuing fire at the once-popular water park in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里).
Huang’s condition has stabilized since he had both his legs amputated at the knee on Monday last week, prompting the hospital to schedule his first skin graft yesterday.
“Due to the extensive burns Huang suffered, there is not much skin left for the procedure. After the advice of Johns Hopkins Burn Center director Stephen Milner, we decided to transplant skin from his scrotum to his right knee,” the hospital’s Department of Plastic Surgery director Lin Hwang-chi (林煌基) said.
Lin said they first injected 100cc of saline solution under the skin of Huang’s scrotum to make it balloon in size, before removing the skin, which accounted for approximately 2 percent of his total skin.
As scrotal skin is very elastic, Lin said they managed to stretch the skin to three times its original size, adding that the procedure would ensure successful prosthetic use.
Skin from Huang’s back, abdomen and lower abdomen were also grafted onto his right thigh and lower legs yesterday, with a second-stage grafting operation scheduled to take place in seven to 10 days time, Lin said.
Taiwan Society of Plastic Surgery director-general Ma Hsu (馬旭) said that the surgery was probably the first of its kind in the nation.
“Because the skin of the scrotum contains many sebaceous glands and hair follicles, it takes a relatively short time of about six days for the area to heal, compared with 10 days from the scalp and up to three weeks for skin from other areas of the body,” Ma said.
However, due to the “sensitive location” of scrotal skin, most plastic surgeons have avoided using it for skin grafts, he said.
Huang is among 349 people injured in the blast who were still in hospital as of 10am yesterday, of whom 221 are being treated in intensive care and 167 are in critical conditions, according to Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics.
The catastrophic event injured more than 490 people and took the lives of eight.
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