Patients and physicians disagree in how they assessed surgical scars 28 percent of the time, according to a study published in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery.
Researchers analyzed studies between 1972 and 2015, where surgeons tried two different methods of intervention for surgical scars, either incising the skin or suturing the skin with two different methods. For this study, researchers used 29 of these studies involving 4,485 patients.
The study found patients were more likely to focus on the scar's depth, while physicians were more likely to highlight the scar's texture and coloration. These findings indicate a need to create better scar evaluation methods and improve patients' preoperative counseling, according to the study authors.
Current methods for evaluating scars were not originally developed to assess surgical scars said Joseph Sobanko, MD, senior study author. Several of these methods were developed to assess different types of scars, such as burn scars. The methods also do not account for the differences in how patients and physicians perceive surgical scars.
"These findings may help to improve preoperative counseling and highlight the importance of developing scar measures that balance the perceptions of patients and physicians," Dr. Sobanko said. However, additional research is needed to better understand what patients and physicians expect during preoperative visits and how the scar's location on the body affects perception, Dr. Sobanko added.