Dermis
Cosmetic Surgery - Plastic Surgery - Aesthetic Medicine - Reconstructive Surgery
The skin consists of three main tissues. From the surface inwards,
these are the epidermis¡ (about 100 micrometers thick), the dermis (a
fibrous tissue, the thickness of which varies according to the area of
the, it is a few millimetres thick), and the hypodermis (rich in
adipocytes).
The dermis is richly irrigated by blood capillaries that provide skin
nutrition and are involved in the control of body temperature. The
superficial dermis also has many nerve endings (temperature, pressure,
touch sensors) that extend through the epidermis to the skin surface.
In the dermis lie roots of hair and their erector muscles, sebaceous
(sebum-producing) glands and sweat glands (which produce the sweat
necessary for thermoregulation).
The dermis, a fibrous tissue consisting mainly of collagen and
elastic fibres, is responsible for the flexibility and resilience of
the skin. Collagen and elastic fibres slide in a gel that is very rich
in water (it is made up of proteoglycans which trap up to a thousand
times their weight in water). This construction provides some
plasticity to this tissue. Where a wound occurs, this construction will
provide for the initial stages of healing. The cells that make up the
dermis are fibroblasts. In aesthetic surgery, dermabrasion is used to
remove the top layer of skin (epidermis) and may go deeper into the
dermis in an attempt to erase superficial skin imperfections and signs
of aging. The dermis is preserved, it is from there that the
regeneration of the epidermis takes place through the natural process
of healing starting from, inter alia, the pilosebaceous annexes.