E-Cigarettes and Potential Implications for Plastic Surgery

The use of tobacco-based products, most notably cigarettes, is related directly to wound healing problems and poorer outcomes in plastic surgery. Current abstracts have highlighted the potential complications from nicotine, specifically following plastic surgery in patients who choose to smoke. Recently, products that use electricity to vaporize liquid nitrogen have been gaining popularity. New rules were recently proposed that would give the federal government authority over electronic cigarettes. However, the health-related issues surrounding e-cigarettes are still largely unknown or misunderstood. These issues also extend to their impact on surgical procedures, notably their effect on plastic surgical procedures that rely heavily on the vascularity of either the host wound bed or the replacement tissue.