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Para-incisional tattooing with electrocautery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2007

Akhtar Hussain*
Affiliation:
Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen, UK.
Michael S. W. Lee
Affiliation:
Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen, UK.
*
Address for correspondence: Mr. A. Hussain, F.R.C.S., Consultant Otolaryngologist and Head and Neck Surgeon, Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Foresterhill, Aberdeen AB9 2ZB.

Abstract

The authors present a technique using electrocautery diathermy to make surgical tattoos. This method has been used in over 300 patients who underwent head and neck surgery at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and Albany Medical College, New York, over a period of five years. A wide variety of operative procedures such as total laryngectomies and neck dissections were performed. The electrocautery surgical tattoos have a major advantage of persisting until the end of the operative procedure by which time other types of tattoos have faded. The technique is widely available, inexpensive, and has to date been complication free.

Type
Short Communication
Copyright
Copyright © JLO (1984) Limited 1999

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Footnotes

This paper was presented at The Scottish Otolaryngological Society Meeting at Dunkeld on 5th June 1998.

References

Granick, M. S., Heckler, F. R., Jones, E. W. (1987) Surgical skin-marking techniques. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 79: 573580.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stromberg, B. V. (1987) The surgical marking pen: A comparative study. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 80: 104107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed