Preface

Scars represent the indelible cutaneous signature of aggression, surgery, traumas, and
other events occurring during life. Most of them cause no problem, but some of them
become sources of social exclusion, especially in a world where beauty is glorified. The
psychosocial aspects surrounding culture, religion, and uses may be determinant. Even
a transient redness may become source of suffering. Paradoxically, major keloids or
massive contractures cause definitive loss of function or social problems leading to
exclusion in developing countries, whereas simultaneously, we assist a rapid extension
of laser technology indications for minor scar problems in the same countries. When
we founded the Scar Club in 2006 together with Prof. Tom Mustoe, the aim was and
still is the diffusion of knowledge and the development of all types of mechanical
devices and antiscarring drugs.
Important financial support for researches in the field of growth factors and antis-
carring agents was recruited, aiming at controlling cell proliferation and secretion using
chemical compounds, but the results were modest. Mechanical control of keloids or
hypertrophic scars is proposed and reimbursed in some countries, applying medical
devices capable to exert forces over the suture during the post-operative period or over
post-burn scars.
This small group formed the Scar Club, composed of passionate colleagues who
attracted surgeons and dermatologists, researchers, and physiotherapists, becoming an
upmost scientific biannual rendezvous attracting colleagues from all over the world.
The Scar Club group is built like a club, focusing on researches, new organizations and
collaborations, new strategies, and development of guidelines.
The need for a larger educational initiative appeared since 2015 and the GScarS was
founded in 2016. In October 2018, the first GScarS meeting was held in Shanghai with
a successful event, grouping more than 600 colleagues. The idea came from the Board
to provide an educational book free of charge, open source, and downloadable from
anywhere. Patients and caregivers suffer most of the time from an insufficient profes-
sional training, and scar science is poorly represented in teaching courses at universi-
ties. Most of the proposed treatments are still based on cultural or anecdotal medicine.
It is time to propose a structuration of the scar knowledge based on evidence-based
medicine, consensus, guidelines, and key opinion leaders’ expertise.
This Compendium on scar management proposes a synthesis of the basic principles
in scar management, including the large armamentarium of medical devices having
proven efficacy and considered as the standards of care, and also the most recent tech-
niques accessible in scar management, provided by the most prominent specialists com-
ing from all over the world. It will be completed by a series of illustrations, schematic
strategies, and clinical cases accessible on the Springer website.

Luc Téot
Montpellier, France