Bold to Do — Bald to Be? Outcomes Decades After Harvesting the Scalp in Burned Children
October 2018
in “
Burns
”
TLDR Most patients who had scalp skin removed for burns as children had normal hair growth and were satisfied years later.
The study "Bold to do — bald to be? Outcomes decades after harvesting the scalp in burned children" conducted a long-term follow-up on 32 patients (18 males, 14 females) who had undergone scalp skin harvest due to burns between 1977 and 1987. The mean follow-up time was 27.09 ± 3.04 years. The results showed that the long-term morbidity of scalp skin harvest and the risk of clinically significant alopecia was very low. Hair growth was considered normal in 97% of patients. Scalp examination revealed 11 unknown likely harvest-related alopecias with a mean size of 0.7 cm2. The study concluded that patient satisfaction was high and that androgenetic alopecia is unlikely to reveal harvest damage previously hidden by regrown hair.
