5485 Grafts! (More than 10,620 Hairs!) Thank You Dr Wong!

[bigmac]

Hi Red
Very interesting post about the single baldes.

I checked with Janna from SMG if they used these on me which they did.

She was kind enough to answer my questions and wrote this reply to me which i thought i would share.

Quote

Dr. Ron Shapiro wrote an article about the benefits of single blade harvesting in the HT text book. At SMG, for each session, there are two separate SCORING blades set up with different size of width of blades to coincide with patient's laxity and goal of the session. They are used to nick/score the surface of the skin only. We take the strips in multi sections to accommodate the laxity in different parts of the head. Some doctors will use a permanent marker and measuring tape to mark out the strip first then use the single blade scalpel. It's a matter of preference but the scoring method seems a bit more efficient, imo. Once the scoring is complete, a blunt hemostat or a Haber Spreader is used to spread the tissue apart to achieve virtually 0 percent transection.

However, I've seen first hand at Live Surery Workshops that even the use of single blade scalpels without the spreaders get high transection rates if the docs are not experienced or skilled. There are more likihood of t-factors if just a multi blades is used because even if the top part of the strip looks perfect without transections, the bottom portion of the strip may be filled with transected hairs because due to the angle, it is a blind cut.

************************************************** ***

One other point you mention is for patients to chect to see what blades a doc uses.This is something which never crossed my mind,maybe some pictures of blades etc would help people as most patients wont have a clue what the differences are.

Cheers bm.