Daily observations during healing of a full-thickness human surgical wound by second intention.

After his preauricular basal cell carcinoma had been excised by Mohs micrographic surgery, a patient took daily photographs of his 6 x 3-cm full-thickness wound as it healed by second intention over the next 44 days. Wound contraction produced a linear decrease in wound area between postoperative days 3 and 40 that accounted for 57% of the area of the original wound. The remainder of the wound was resurfaced by new epithelium, beginning on day 16. Few comparable reports address the contributions of contraction and re-epithelialization in large full-thickness human wounds.