A 16-year-old girl with a prominent congenital pigmented naevus on the cheek undergoes serial tissue expansion of adjacent neck skin before excision. Which is the principal advantage of expansion in this setting?

• A Expansion shortens total treatment duration compared with direct excision
• B Expansion stimulates melanocyte regeneration in the reconstructed area
• C Expanded skin can be transferred as a free graft without a vascular pedicle
• D Expanded skin retains the colour, texture and adnexal structures matched to the defect site ✓

Explanation

Tissue expansion generates local skin that matches the adjacent defect in colour, texture, thickness and appendages, and it avoids a distant donor site, making it ideal for facial lesions. The expanded skin remains a vascularised local or regional flap, not a free graft, and treatment takes weeks of serial inflation, so options B, C and A are factually wrong on mechanism or logistics.

Reference: Grabb and Smith's Plastic Surgery, 8th ed.

High-yield for: NEET PGINI-CETNExTFMGEUSMLEPLABMRCP

Written and medically reviewed by the StethoPrep medical team.