Surgery recovery - Molecular biology understanding

[IN2DEEP]

I would like to know how it actually works inside our body when a good quantity of mass is removed. I'm a grad student in molecular and cellular biology and Id like to know more about it. The same questions comes back periodically and we always talk about the visual aspect and the surgery procedures/cost. Lets go a little bit further.

Unlike the central nervous system, the peripheral one can regenerate so does the whole procedure actually increase or decrease the overall sensitivity? How does it ''find'' his way back into the skin after a huge amount of excision?

How does the blood vessel keep acheving oxygen to the skin/areola after the gap is formed? Have you ever seen any tissue/areola necrosis after surgery?

Following the same logic, does the ''blue color'' comes from a lack of oxygen of the skin?

What cause the skin to get a yellowish color?

I beleive this gland in a men body doesnt have any endocrine/exocrine activity but if I'm actually wrong, does the removal affect our metabolism and how?

I was looking at different article in pubmed but cases are way too specific and rarely only oriented on the gynecomastia. Do you have any free articles database specific to plastic and cosmetic surgeon?

Thanks again for your time.

[Litlriki]

I will answer a few of the questions you've posed, but for the deeper molecular and physiologic aspects of wound healing, I will refer you back to your professors and textbooks.

During the procedure, nerves get beat up by the liposuction process, and some nerves get cut during excision.  Nerve recovery occurs, though some patients will observe that sensory changes persist, even long after the surgery is completed. Some recovery is the result of collateral nerve ingrowth, and much is just "reawakening" of the original nerves, which just get bruised during the surgery.  I can't imagine that sensitivity is greater after surgery. 

While a "dead space" is created by removal of a mass under the areola, and tunnels are created by removal of fat during the liposuction portion of the procedure, blood supply is maintained through the extensive network of blood vessels in the skin and subcutaneous tissue--meaning there is no "gap."  But necrosis can occur, and a risk of the procedure is loss of the nipple-areola complex.  This is uncommon.

By "blue color," I'm assuming you mean bruising, and this isn't an issue of low oxygen--it's just a bruise from blood outside of the blood vessels under the skin.  The progression to yellow is the normal progression in the resolution of a bruise. 

Breast tissue, the "gland," is an end-organ, and it doesn't have any impact on metabolism that I'm aware of.  Similarly, removal of the relatively small amounts of fat that are removed during gynecomastia resection have no metabolic impact.

I hope that's helpful.

Rick Silverman