Scar

This article is about the skin condition. For the fictional character from The Lion King, see Scar (The Lion King).

A scar is the natural result of a healing process in the human body. When the dermis is hurt by a wound, the wounded tissue will be replaced by scar tissue. Scar tissue is not identical to the tissue it replaces. A scar will look different (and have different characteristics) than the surrounding tissue.

A wound on a human arm, and the scar that was left after it healed

Scar tissue is composed of the same protein (collagen) as the tissue that it replaces, but the fiber composition of the protein is different; instead of a random basketweave formation of the collagen fibers found in normal tissue, in fibrosis the collagen cross-links and forms a pronounced alignment in a single direction. This collagen scar tissue alignment is usually of inferior functional quality to the normal collagen randomised alignment. For example, scars in the skin are less resistant to ultraviolet radiation, and sweat glands and hair follicles do not grow back within scar tissues. A myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack, causes scar formation in the heart muscle, which leads to loss of muscular power and possibly heart failure. However, there are some tissues (e.g. bone) that can heal without any structural or functional deterioration.

References

Media related to Scars at Wikimedia Commons