The use of microsurgical planing to treat traumatic tattoos.

A traumatic tattoo results from an abrasion in which dirt, carbon, tar, asphalt, or other particles have become embedded beneath the superficial layer of the dermis. These embedded particles are difficult to remove completely. Under a microscope, rectangular epidermal and upper dermal grids including these pigments are made, and each section of the grid is removed. The microsurgical planing technique has the following advantages: it saves the maximum possible amount of normal skin, and the particles are completely removed. Twenty patients have been treated with this technique and have obtained excellent results.