Scars
Most injuries to the skin result in scars whether these are cuts, scrapes, burns, acne/chicken pox scars or stretch marks from pregnancy. In addition many people have scars from major surgical procedures that have been carried out on them. In the developed world for example it is estimated that around 80 million surgical procedures are carried out each year.
What are scars?
When the skin is injured collagen is formed beneath the skin to reconnect the broken tissue of a wound. In order for the new skin to form and heal a dry, temporary crust (a scab) is formed over the wound. When the damaged skin is healed the scab will fall off. However sometimes the process of reconnecting the broken tissue will leave a scar.
Scars come in all shapes and sizes and depend on the type of wound, its location, its size, nutritional factors and genetics. It can take up to 24 months for a scar to develop and mature. In their early phase scars are red, dark and raised early scars are red or purple in colour, a result of broken blood vessels and inflammation, but over time they will fade to become a pale pink or silvery patch of skin.
We can classify scars into three broad types: hypertrophic, stretch marks and atrophic scars. The first group are usually pink raised and firm, stretch marks occur as bands of wrinkled skin usually caused by weight loss or weight gain and most commonly pregnancy while atrophic scars are caused by collagen destruction as a result of skin diseases such as acne.