[Soft tissue reconstruction after scalping injury caused by a dog bite]

The reconstruction of soft-tissue damage on the part of the head which is covered with hair is aimed not only at repairing the damage in such a way that it will withstand mechanical strain but also at the restoring the hair on the scalp. In a 5-year-old boy with a scalping injury involving second- and third-degree soft-tissue damage over an area of 20 x 12 cm after a dog bite, surgery was initially performed to transform the damage into purely second-degree damage, which was then repaired with a split skin graft. One year later, the scalp containing the hair was stretched with the aid of two skin expanders over a period of 3 months, so that the split skin graft area could be removed and the hair on the scalp restored.