Two Injection Port Placement Techniques in Soft Tissue Expansion: A Retrospective Cohort Study

OBJECTIVE: To compare the clinical efficacy and complication between the internal and external placement of injection ports in soft tissue expansion, providing a reference for the selection of clinical strategies and nursing management. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical data of 169 patients from June 2024 to July 2025. The patients were divided into an internal injection group (internal group) and an external injection group (external group) according to the injection port placement method. The incidence of complications and differences in injection methods between the 2 groups were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: The overall complication rate was 10.65%. The main complications were expander rupture (35.00%) and infection (25.00%). The complication rate in the external group was 12.96%, slightly higher than 11.30% in the internal group, with no statistically significant difference in the incidence of each type of complication between the 2 groups (P>0.05). The proportion of clinic-based injection in the internal group (87.83%) was much higher than that in the external group (7.41%) (P<0.001). CONCLUSION: The 2 placement methods have similar complication rates and are both clinically feasible. The external group was more inclined to choose home-based injection than the internal group.