YOUNG BURN VICTIM GETS FIRST SKIN GRAFT TO HEAL SCARRED FACE.

Byline: Steve Carney Daily News Staff Writer

Denis Nefedova received his new right cheek Thursday, when doctors grafted skin from his leg to repair his scarred face.

The burned Russian boy was understandably nervous going in, but the operation went very well, said his doctor, A. Richard Grossman of the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital and Health Center.

``He was frightened,'' he said. ``He's a 10-year-old boy in a foreign country. It's the morning of surgery - kids will cry.''

But the youth was in good spirits afterward, playing, watching cartoons and visiting with other patients, he said.

Thursday morning, Grossman grafted a thick layer of skin from the inside of Denis' thigh to his right cheek, and then grafted a thinner layer from another spot on his leg to the first area.

Denis was burned last year when a candle tipped over and ignited gasoline fumes in his family's apartment on Sakhalin Island, just north of Japan. The explosion seared his hands and head.

On Monday, Grossman removed a mass of scar tissue about the size of a slice of bread from Denis' right cheek and covered it with cadaver skin. That protected the wound and promoted blood vessel and cell activity, which paved the way for Thursday's skin graft.

He said he'll check the boy again in three days to make sure the cheek is healing properly. Then, after about a month of recuperation, he'll get to work on Denis' left cheek.

In what will probably be a yearlong series of procedures, surgeons will next work on Denis' seared hands, nose and scalp. In addition to the burns, surgeons have to repair keloid scars, tissue that grew after botched surgeries in Russia.

``The big thing is getting those big keloid scars off'' the boy's face, Grossman said. The area at the edge of the graft may be scarred, and the long-term prognosis is hard to estimate, he said, but ``it looked pretty good. The color blends itself.''

After his first operation, Denis was watching Russian cartoon videos, playing tic-tac-toe and visiting with the nurses, said Diane Barackman, a director of surgical technology at Concorde Career Institute in North Hollywood. She has been helping coordinate support among the Los Angeles Russian community for Denis and his mother.

When he's not in the hospital, they stay at a Russian nursing home in the city and are looking for families who might be able to house them.

Grossman said once Denis had recovered from surgery somewhat, he was running up and down the hallways playing and had a stream of visitors. Among them was a young former patient of the burn center who lost an arm because of a severe electrical shock. He played video games with Denis.

Grossman said it's common, especially for youngsters at the center, to get visits from current and former patients to cheer them up.

``They say, hey, I was in that room,'' he said. ``It's like a wonderful alumni club. They come and offer support.''