Dr. Michael Tirgan, MD - New York City

Skin Growth Removal / Skin Tumor Treatment; One Patient at a Time.

earlobe keloids

Earlobes are very common places for Keloid formation.  Earlobe Keloids are almost always due to piercing of the earlobes.  We are not sure as to why some people are prone to develop earlobe keloids. What is apparent is that some individuals are prone to develop earlobe keloids. 

Keloid is an excess growth of a scar which is due to excess fibrous tissue formation at the site of a prior wound.  Some individuals are prone to develop thick and massive scars at the site of any injury to their skin.   Surgery has traditionally been counterproductive, as removing one scar, results in formation of another at the same site. Keloids are benign yet their growth, location and appearance can be very distressing. 

Treatments for earlobe keloids:

Treatment of earlobe keloids depends size and thickness and relationship to the earlobe itself.  Surgery alone can result in recurrence of earlobe keloids in almost 100% of cases.  Surgery, preceded and followed by steroid injections is associated with a lower risk of recurrence.  In deciding on surgery, one has to consider the family history of the patient, as well as presence of keloids in other parts of body.  Patient with strong family history of keloids, and those with other keloids run very high risk of recurrence of keloid after surgery.  Perhaps only those patients who have no family history of keloid, and have no other keloids, will have a low recurrence rate after surgery.

Most earlobe keloids can be treated with cryotherapy alone, others may need to be injected with steroids or rarely with chemotherapy drugs.  The good news is that everyone with earlobe keloids can be helped in one form or the other. Each treatment results is some improvement in the appearance of the Keloid. 

Earlobe Keloids can very in size and location.  Some Keloids are limited to only on side of the earlobe,  while other keloids can be complex and destroy the whole earlobe as depicted below.

Below is the interim result after four cryotherapy sessions, (four months later)  for the above huge keloid of the left earlobe.  This bulky keloid has become visibly smaller than what it was before.  We still need to work on this Keloid; and she will need few more treatments.

In 2005, Dr. Fikrle from Czech Republic published his experience with Cryotherapy as monotherapy, that is just using cryotherapy, without any other interventions in seven cases of earlobe Keloids (Dermatol Surg. 2005 Dec;31(12):1728-3).  Dr. Fikrle observed that the volume of the Keloids reduced in every patient and that complete flattening of the scars/Keloids occurred in 5 out of seven patients and concluded his publication, stating "We present an excellent effect of cryosurgery as the monotherapy for the treatment of earlobe Keloid scars of young patients."  

This is the method that I use to treat majority of earlobe Keloids.  The video below demonstrates how I apply Cryotherapy to earlobe keloids.

Cryotherapy can be easily applied to earlobe Keloids.  The procedure is easy to tolerate.  There is usually no need to numb the skin. 

Below are mages of an earlobe keloid, which was frozen twice, however, this particular keloid remained resistant to cryotherapy.  I ended up removing this keloid surgically. 

To learn more about Keloids, please visit our dedicated Keloid Information web site:

 www.keloid212.com

To learn more about Keloid Research Foundation, please visit our dedicated web site:

www.KeloidResearchFoundation.org

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