Letter to the Editor:
Wide donor scars are a problem
all hair restoration surgeons see.
They are difficult to treat and
can be caused by poor laxity of
the donor site or too wide a strip
being excised. Often attempts at
scar reduction fail, because the
scar ‘‘stretches back’’
to its original wide state. A method
that I have been using is transplanting
chest hair removed by follicular
unit extraction (removal of hair
follicles 1 unit at a time, using
a 1-mm punch) and transplanting
into the scar. I make the recipient
sites first and hand the grafts
immediately to the technician to
plant into the sites;
Figure 1. Preoperative photo of
wide donor scar.
Figure 2. Postoperative photo of
scar with grafts in place.
|
Figure 3. Close-up of postoperative
photo.
Figure 4. Three months postoperatively
with hair growth.
thus the grafts are out of the
body for only 10 to 20 seconds.
The grafts were planted at about
30 per square centimeter. In this
particular patient, the ‘‘after’’
photos are 3 months postoperatively,
showing almost immediate growth.
Body hair also seemed to behave
in ‘‘recipient dominant’’
fashion when transplanted into the
scalp. It will take up to a full
year to get the final results in
this patient. Within 3 months, the
donor area was completely healed.
Body hair transplanted into a wide
donor scar is a viable method of
dealing with this common problem
(Figures 1–4).
ROBERT JONES, MD
Oakville, Ontario, Canada |
© 2008 by
the American Society for Dermatologic
Surgery, Inc. • Published
by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. •
ISSN: 1076-0512 • Dermatol
Surg 2008;34:857 • DOI: 10.1111/j.1524-4725.2008.34163.x
This is an electronic version of
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