Does Donor Scar Thickness Depend On Patient Healing or Technique?

Dear doctor

i would like to know if the effect of Trichophytic Closure works better on a scalp that has never been operated on before, rather than on a scar revision?

In addition, the thickness of donor scar in each patient is varying, most is pending on each patient’s healing ability rather than the technique. If this is true?

Lastly I would like to know what is running suture closure technique?

regards

Any cut on the skin will produce a scar. The problem is in how to minimize the scar. Each time the donor area is harvested with a strip technique, the risk of scarring increases. To put it simply, there are two factors for scar formation. The first factor is dependant on the individual and how his/her body naturally heals. The second factor is dependant on the techniques that the surgeon uses to close a wound. I have seen bad surgical techniques that resulted in great, cosmetically acceptable scars, because the patient’s body healed exceptionally well, despite what the surgeon did. An individual’s ability to heal and form scars is difficult to predict and not completely understood, because it is determined at a genetic level, impacting the way your body lays down the healing infrastructure of a wound.

To answer your question on the trichophytic closure, it is dependant on the individual as long as the technique is good and the tension on the scalp is minimized. The prior scar would give an indication of how a particular patient may heal.

To answer your second question, you are correct in stating the width of the scar is dependant on the individual’s healing ability.

Finally, a running suture closure is what you see on a baseball stitch or the hem on your shirt, typical of the way a sewing machine creates a homogeneous stitch line. Different surgeons choose different closure techniques for different purposes. One is not necessarily better than the other, because each has its advantages and disadvantages in each and every patient so that is where the surgeon’s expertise comes into play. Wisdom in surgery is the sum of all of the knowledge that the surgeon has, as decisions are constantly made during a surgery that reflect the recovery and outcome of that surgical procedure.