Abstract
Purpose: In the past, laymen or beauty parlor employees commonly injected people with unproven foreign material such as paraffin, silicone, and cooking oil. We have treated a patient who injected foreign material into her face and neck. Methods: For the last 20 years, a 43-year-old woman has been injecting herself in the face and neck with foreign material. There was no tenderness, erythema, pain, ulceration, or necrosis. However many visible, touchable subcutaneous masses were found. Her face was extremely ugly and disfigured by the foreign material. We could not recognize the boundary between her neck and mandible. The occipital scalp drooped extremely. Over the past 3 years, from February 2005 to October 2007, we performed 15 operations. Results: We conducted a cephalometric facial analysis to compare preoperative and postoperative facial diameter. The patient's upper face diameter decreased from 67 cm to 60 cm, the mid face diameter from 82 cm to 59 cm, the lower face diameter from 63 cm to 50 cm, and the neck circumference diameter from 53 cm to 44 cm, respectively. The mid sagittal diameter decreased from 26 cm to 23 cm. The total excised tissue weight was 4023.7 gram after 15 operations. Conclusion: Serial excision of face and neck masses in a patient who injected herself with foreign material resulted in a satisfactory outcome.
