Munchausen's syndrome in plastic surgery practice: A bewildering situation!

The plastic surgeon rarely encounters patients expressing factitious disorders. Through their incredible imagination, these patients conjure numerous lesions for themselves and willingly accept to undergo invasive diagnostic procedures and risky therapies. We report four cases of Munchausen′s syndrome in the field of plastic surgery and follow with a discussion of as to when should the alarm bells start ringing for the unsuspecting plastic surgeon, to assist him in dealing with these too often-ignored disorders

Les sangsues

Leeches are hermaphroditic and hematophagous annelids. One important medical species, Hirudo medicinalis, comes from hirudiniculture of fresh water pools. Thanks to their three mandibles with some 300 teeth on their anterior muscular sucker, they easily grab to tissues and by secreting their saliva containing numerous powerful enzymes, such as hyaluronidase, collagenase and inhibitors of platelet aggregation and coagulation, like hirudin, allow blood sucking. Once they are full of blood (upto 15 g of blood), they detach themselves from their prey. Used ever since the 18 th Egyptian Dynasty, leeches became famous during the first part of the XIX th century, thanks to a French physician, François Joseph Victor Broussais, known to his adversaries as the "vampire of medicine", for treating various conditions such as phlebotomy, laryngitis, ocular problems, obesity, mental disorders, etc. Overfishing, therapeutic failures and most particularly, the emergence of hygiene, brought the decline of living leeches. In 1884, an extract of leeches was obtained - hirudin and henceforth used. Nowadays, leeches are still used in microsurgery to enhance the venous circulation in finger reimplantation or skin flap transposition. Hirudin is synthesized through recombinant DNA technology and molecules such as lepirudin and desirudin are available on the market as anticoagulant.SCOPUS: sh.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Le cadavre et la momie utilisés à des fins thérapeutiques

Sickness befallen onto him, man found that plant and animal derivatives invigorated him. Thereafter, he found a therapeutic benefit in using man as a means of self cure and especially, dead man from violent death. The foam of the skull of cadaver was an excellent antiepileptic as well as blood coming out from a freshly decapitated man. By applying on diseased parts of his body, so as to get rid of inflammation or infection, cadaver's hands were used against tumors of all kinds. Dead human skin were processed into belts and used therein for helping delivery of parturition women. The mummy must be blackish, foul smelling and hard. Those who were whitish, odorless and powder-like, were unfit for use. Mummy powder applied to the nose would stop nose bleeding. Ambroise Paré (1510-1590) was an adversary of those practices.SCOPUS: sh.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Accouchement forcé en lieu et place de l'opération césarienne post mortem

The Lex Regia stipulated that no pregnant women shall be buried unless the child has been removed from her womb. The post mortem caesarean delivery was upheld till 1861 by the majority of obstetricians but nevertheless, anterior to the XIX th century, in 1729, Delamotte practiced delivery in the agonising patient in the absence of labour in view to bypass the cesarean section in hope of better child survival. This article describes the beginning of forced ante mortem delivery upon post mortem cesarean section, which contributed to a decrease in child mortality.SCOPUS: le.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Munchausen′s syndrome in plastic surgery practice: A bewildering situation!

The plastic surgeon rarely encounters patients expressing factitious disorders. Through their incredible imagination, these patients conjure numerous lesions for themselves and willingly accept to undergo invasive diagnostic procedures and risky therapies. We report four cases of Munchausen′s syndrome in the field of plastic surgery and follow with a discussion of as to when should the alarm bells start ringing for the unsuspecting plastic surgeon, to assist him in dealing with these too often-ignored disorders

Munchausen′s syndrome in plastic surgery practice: A bewildering situation!

The plastic surgeon rarely encounters patients expressing factitious disorders. Through their incredible imagination, these patients conjure numerous lesions for themselves and willingly accept to undergo invasive diagnostic procedures and risky therapies. We report four cases of Munchausen′s syndrome in the field of plastic surgery and follow with a discussion of as to when should the alarm bells start ringing for the unsuspecting plastic surgeon, to assist him in dealing with these too often-ignored disorders

Munchausen′s syndrome in plastic surgery practice: A bewildering situation!

ABSTRACTThe plastic surgeon rarely encounters patients expressing factitious disorders. Through their incredible imagination, these patients conjure numerous lesions for themselves and willingly accept to undergo invasive diagnostic procedures and risky therapies. We report four cases of Munchausen′s syndrome in the field of plastic surgery and follow with a discussion of as to when should the alarm bells start ringing for the unsuspecting plastic surgeon, to assist him in dealing with these too often-ignored disorders.</jats:p