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This 18 year old boy is about 10 years out from radiation treatments to cure cancer in the jaw joint. His entire right parietal scalp is without hair and this causes him a lot of distress. Readers may recall that I posted a similar case that we did last year with a one year update this past May with excellent results, also in a young man. And readers may know that my daughter has brain cancer, so I am only too familiar with what these kids have had to endure.
This family came to see me and we discussed a strip procedure and our first case will place hair more toward the middle, hoping that gravity will allow hair growth to come down and camouflage lower down hair loss. We planned for a second case just like the other young man we did, to get good coverage.
I was very frank with the patient and his parents that I have only done one other of these cases….but that I am highly motivated to help them, given my personal situation with my daughter. Given the radiation, I am not sure it’s going to work….but I’m certainly hopeful. His recipient area felt like normal scalp, it appeared to have good vascularity and he did great cleaning.
We did his first case in mid August 2011, and on Thanksgiving his mom emailed me that he was growing. He had a day off from school last week and stopped in at just under 6 months. Pictures showed that it was growing quite nicely. And 11 month pictures today show decent coverage of what we did last year.
He came in last week for the second case. We were able to get 1650, mostly doubles and triples, and finished out almost all of the right side. As I got closer to his ear, where he had the most irradiation, the skin definitely got firmer, but appeared to have a good blood supply. His sutures came out yesterday and he’s off to college. I expect to see him at Christmas break. He and his mom have offered to come on and blog about their experience, so hopefully they’ll chime in soon.
Dr. Lindsey McLean VA
This family came to see me and we discussed a strip procedure and our first case will place hair more toward the middle, hoping that gravity will allow hair growth to come down and camouflage lower down hair loss. We planned for a second case just like the other young man we did, to get good coverage.
I was very frank with the patient and his parents that I have only done one other of these cases….but that I am highly motivated to help them, given my personal situation with my daughter. Given the radiation, I am not sure it’s going to work….but I’m certainly hopeful. His recipient area felt like normal scalp, it appeared to have good vascularity and he did great cleaning.
We did his first case in mid August 2011, and on Thanksgiving his mom emailed me that he was growing. He had a day off from school last week and stopped in at just under 6 months. Pictures showed that it was growing quite nicely. And 11 month pictures today show decent coverage of what we did last year.
He came in last week for the second case. We were able to get 1650, mostly doubles and triples, and finished out almost all of the right side. As I got closer to his ear, where he had the most irradiation, the skin definitely got firmer, but appeared to have a good blood supply. His sutures came out yesterday and he’s off to college. I expect to see him at Christmas break. He and his mom have offered to come on and blog about their experience, so hopefully they’ll chime in soon.
Dr. Lindsey McLean VA
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