|
Enclosed are the before and after photos of 1900-graft STRIP harvest done by Dr. Cole and staff.
Some years prior to his appointment with Dr. Cole, this patient had an open-donor plug-graft surgery performed. Recognizing the poor aesthetic result of the plug procedure, the patient discontinued the treatment after one session. Unfortunately, additional hair loss in the years that followed made the plug grafts stand out as hyper-dense clusters in “a sea of baldness.” Without any effective method to cover this up, the patient sought out surgical repair options with Dr. Cole.
The benefit of opting for a strip in this case was two-fold. Firstly, 1900 grafts were harvested in one day without shaving the donor area. Secondly, several rows of open donor scars were removed in the strip excision. While removing scar tissue in a strip reduces the amount of grafts that are harvested, it also serves to partially “clean up” some of circular scarring on the back of the head.
As illustrated in the photos, the yield of the procedure was high and coverage is very good. Due to he patient’s high degree of loss it was prudent to build a higher hairline than what was attempted by the previous surgeon. The patient is largely able to conceal the prior work with his new crop of hair. There are, however, a few rows of “chunky” grafts up front that are still apparent.
Time for the second and final phase of the repair: plug graft removal and redistribution via FIT. During this upcoming stage, the last vestiges of the bad HT will be swept from the hairline using the Follicular Isolation Technique. The patient can then choose to redistribute the resulting follicular unit grafts into his male pattern area or back into his donor area. |
|