The Department is the largest plastic surgery department in Denmark.
Plastic surgery includes diagnostics, treatment and rehabilitation of patients with diseases, injuries and congenital abnormalities, where corrective or reconstructive surgery is part of the treatment.
The quality of the patient treatment is continually heightened by introducing standardised treatment programmes for the most frequent diseases.
The department cooperates with all surgical departments at Rigshospitalet and a wide range of advanced treatments and reconstructions are performed by cross-disciplinary teams.
Continuous cooperation with colleagues around the world is crucial for research and development of the subject.
The Department of Plastic Surgery and Burns Treatment must remain a leader within its specialist area with regard to medical, nursing and secretarial aspects.
The department must provide patients with the best possible care, treatment and service in accordance with current standards
The department consists of the following four expert sections:
Oncologic Plastic Surgery
Burns Section
Trauma and Reconstructive Surgery Section
Cleft Lip, Palate and Craniofacial Surgery Section
Plastic surgery research involving registry-based projects has a long tradition as the department is a long-time contributor and often co-founder of several registries including the DBCG (Danish Breast Cancer Group), DMG (Danish Melanoma Group) and DPB (The Danish Registry for Plastic Surgery of the Breast).
All residents training at the department are encouraged to investigate their individual interests, but can also be assigned to an ongoing project if they so desire.
The department aims to host quarterly research meetings for the entire department to discuss the ongoing research projects and has also established an online database of current projects.
The department’s main areas of research are:
Burns treatment with special focus on coagulation, nutrition and wound-healing.
Malignant melanoma, including surgical and adjuvant treatment, sentinel node, tumour biology and epidemiology.
Reconstructive microsurgery, including breast reconstruction, trauma and physiology.
Cleft lip and palate with research concentrating on new surgical methods, genetics, growth and speech function.
Basic research involving mesenchymal stem cells and flap physiology as well as haemodynamics in animal models.
The Burns Section treats skin injuries due to thermal, electric and chemical effects as well as other conditions leading to difficult wounds or loss of skin such as Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis and Necrotizing Fasciitis.
About 10,000 burns are examined annually by a physician. About 200-250 of these are admitted to the Burns Section of the department.
Treatment includes exposure therapy in a heated room and other supporting intensive therapy in cooperation with the Department of Anaesthesiology as well as hyperbaric oxygen therapy for carbon monoxide poisoning.
Surgery is performed in connection with escharectomy, skin grafting and in the treatment of functional and cosmetic consequences of burns.
The section also has a comprehensive outpatient function and an external teaching function.
Cooperation with dieticians, physiotherapists and ergotherapists, psychologists, social advisors, anaesthesiologists and the Pressure Chamber Section (hyperbaric oxygen treatment).
Each year about 130 children are born with cleft lip-gum-palate in Denmark. About 50 per cent of these children have a cleft lip and palate, about 25 per cent have a cleft palate whereas about 25 per cent only have a cleft lip.
The department has a national function for all primary cleft-related abnormalities. The majority of later corrective operations are also carried out here.
Treatment includes operations for cleft lip-gum-palate, speech-improving operations, bone grafting and nose corrections.
The department cooperates with speech and language therapists, phoniatricians and ortodontists at the two cleft lip and palate centres in Aarhus and Hellerup.
The department performs craniofacial surgery on patients with rare abnormalities, including severel abnormalities of the ear, or consequences of other conditions in multi-disciplinary cooperation (craniofacial team) with maxillofacial surgeons, otolaryngologists, ophthalmologists, neurosurgeons and centres abroad.
The Oncology and Plastic Surgery Section carries out diagnostic evaluation and performs surgical treatment and check-up of malignant melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer, some soft-tissue tumours, congenital giant nevi, vascular and lymphatic lesions.
In addition, reconstruction of defects caused by the conditions above.
Treatment includes radical operation, sentinel node biopsy and radical lymphnode dissection.
The department has a national function for hyperthermic regional perfusion (HRP) for treatment of metastatic malignant melanoma and soft-tissue cancer on arms or legs.
Cooperation with pathologists, radiologists, clinical physiologists, nuclear medicine physicians, dermatologists and oncologists.
Trauma and Reconstructive Surgery Section performs surgical and micro-surgical treatment of body deformity and defects as a result of cancer treatment, acute traumas, correction of facial paralysation.
Surgical and micro-surgical treatment of body deformity and defects as a result of cancer treatment (for example primary/secondary breast reconstruction after breast cancer, jaw reconstruction after oral cavity cancer, and limb-sparing reconstruction after ablative surgery for sarcomas)
Acute traumas (road accidents or fall injuries, war injuries) with significant soft-tissue loss
Traumatic incidents with amputation of other body parts than the extremities (scalp, penis, ear and similar)
Correction of facial paralysation (regional function)
Correction of defects as a result of previous treatment, infections and tissue death
Oncoplastic treatment is carried out in cooperation with the Breast Surgery Section.The section is also responsible for functions within general plastic surgery and specialist areas such as scar treatment, skin anomalies, breast anomalies (hypertrophy, aplasia, and asymmetry as well as gynecomastia), excess skin after weight loss or post bariatric surgery, benign tumours, pressure sores in para/tetraplegics, ventral hernias as well as operations for female genital abnormalities, testicular autotransplant (national function) and transsexualism (national function).
Dept. of Plastic Surgery and Burns, PB 2102Blegdamsvej 9DK-2100 CopenhagenTel: +45 35 45 26 09E-mail: plast-brand.rigshospitalet@regionh.dk
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