Principles and procedures in female breast reconstruction in the young child's burn injury.

Thermic lesions of the neck, the shoulder, and the thoracic wall in young children are characterized by identical etiology, pathology, and prognosis. Scald injuries from hot liquids cause deep second-degree up to superficial third-degree burns. In these injuries the subcutaneously located mammary gland is not affected. Therefore, the severe deformities that may occur in puberty are only defects of the soft tissue coverage and not of the mammary glands. Radical scar excision and skin grafting is the therapy of choice. Z-plasty and local flaps may correct these burn defects only partially because the loss of tissue is compensated only by a new distribution of the adjacent skin areas.