Mrs Jennifer Greenhowe is a plastic surgeon at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital. As part of her recently awarded NRS career fellowship she will undertake a research project to understand more about scars (1) and how to treat them.
Scarring can be very troublesome and have lots of effects on children, young people and their families. Every week at Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital we treat many children with new burn injuries, other trauma like accidental cuts or bite wounds and also planned surgical scars. Most heal well with no long term problems but sometimes problems can occur. Keloid scars, for instance, keep growing and become bulky. These can be painful, itchy, heavy, tight, and distressing.
There are lots of possible treatment options for keloid scars but none of these treatments works every time for every patient. Some need to be repeated regularly and sometimes the keloid scars can come back after initially responding to treatment. Previous research has shown that similar processes might be involved in keloid scar formation and inflammation (2) in other diseases. In this research project, we will look more closely at inflammation pathways. We will work with the laboratories of the NHS Grampian Biorepository and Professor Wilson in the Institute of Medial Sciences, University of Aberdeen. The results might influence the choice of available medications and open up possibilities to develop new treatments.
In addition to this laboratory research work we are also developing research into how troublesome scars affect our patients and their families. Patient reported outcomes from specially designed questionnaires will help us develop the best future therapies and treatment options by focusing on what matters most for affected patients.
2) Inflammation – when a part of the body becomes, red, swollen, hot, and often painful after an injury or infection