Resecting the Lesion Combined with Local Flap Repairing for the Treatment of Infected Congenital Preauricular Fistula

PURPOSE: Evaluating the treatment of infected preauricular fistulas by resecting the lesion combining with local flap repairing. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This clinical study was implemented in Ningbo No. 1 Hospital and Wuhan No. 1 Hospital of China. We included 100 cases who were diagnosed with infected preauricular fistulas and needed further surgery treatment. Among them, 50 patients experienced the conventional treatment including a fully infection control following with a surgery to remove preauricular fistulas (conventional treatment group). Other 50 patients only took some simple pre-operation treatment for about 1–7 days, and then preauricular fistulas resection combining local flap repairing were performed regardless of the infection (local flap repairing group). The duration of total treatment procedure, healing index, and total cost were observed. RESULTS: All patients were discharged at about 7 days after surgery, the duration of the post-operative period had no significant difference between groups. The total duration of treatment (from any first treatment time point to patient discharge) was only 13.98±2.14 days in the local flap treatment group compared with that of 43.06±8.24 days in the conventional treatment group. Further, the total cost of treatment per patient in the local flap repairing treatment group was about 47.1% of that in the conventional treatment group. CONCLUSION: For the treatment of infected preauricular fistula, performing a lesion removing surgery combining a local flap repairing can shorten the total treatment course, relieve patient’s suffering, reduce treatment cost, and achieve a better clinical prognosis.