Donor Site Reharvesting in Patients with Exhausted Donor Sites

The article from 1997 discusses two methods of donor site reharvesting, punch reharvesting and strip reharvesting, which allow for additional hair transplant sessions using minigrafts and micrografts, as well as improving the aesthetic appearance of donor scars. These techniques are particularly useful for patients who had undergone hair transplant surgery in the past and were told their donor sites were exhausted. Punch reharvesting involves using diamond-shaped wedges of hair-bearing skin left between scars of previously harvested sites, and typically produces 200 or more triangular minigrafts per session. Strip reharvesting uses a double- or triple-bladed knife to create strips from the donor site, which can yield at least 200 minigrafts, and often 400 to 600 or more, from one or more reharvesting procedures. These methods not only provide additional donor hair for transplantation but also improve the look of the donor sites by converting old circular scars into more aesthetically pleasing curvilinear scars. The article emphasizes the value of these techniques in enhancing the results of hair restoration surgery and managing the supply-demand ratio for donor hair.