%0 Journal Article %T Management of chest keloids %A Tae Hwan Park %A Sang Won Seo %A June Kyu Kim %A Choong Hyun Chang %J Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery %D 2011 %I BioMed Central %R 10.1186/1749-8090-6-49 %X Keloids are relatively resistant to treatment, with high recurrence rates using a single treatment modality. Keloids have a tendency to recur after surgical excision as a single treatment, with rates approximately up to 80-100%. Keloids can arise from skin trauma and must be removed through skin truma. Therein lies the challenge of treatment, where recurrence would seem inevitable. Surgical excision is considered as a kind of skin trauma and it promotes additional collagen synthesis, resulting in regrowth and even larger keloids[1]. This is why we were focused on the article recently published in your esteemed journal by Patel et al.[2] that dealt with the challenging topic of chest keloids.58 patients were treated with surgical excision combined with intraoperative/postoperative intralesional steroid injection therapy over a period of six years from July 2003 to June 2009 at our hospital. In all patients, a follow-up period of 18 months was required. Treatment outcome was assessed with global aesthetic improvement score (GAIS). All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 17.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Our data were not normally distributed; consequently non-parametric tests were used. Descriptive statistics are presented as medians with interquartile ranges or as numbers and percentages.41 (70.7%) were women and 17 (29.3%) were men. The average age was 32 (range 29-35). The average time interval between keloid formation (or prior complete treatment) and time of treatment was 6 (range 5-7) years. The average pretreatment total size of lesions was 3.5 (range 2.0-5.0). 45 patients (29.3%) were treated for a treatment-resistant keloid that failed to respond to previous interventions. These included surgical excision (2 patients, 3.4%), intralesional steroid injection (33 patients, 56.9%), laser therapy (5 patients, 8.6%), acupuncture (3 patients, 5.3%), and cryotherapy (2 patients, 3.4%). The etiologies of chest keloid, in order of decreasing frequ %U http://www.cardiothoracicsurgery.org/content/6/1/49