Donor Scars: Keeping Them Fine and Undetectable

We feel it is important to devote a few words on this site to the topic of donor scars. If the hair surgeon is skillful in the placement of his donor harvest path and keeps its width under one centimeter in the side areas and at the two rear corners, then these should be consistently very narrow and undetectable, even with wearing the hair reasonably short.

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"Patient A" 8 months after HT#1- Hair styled at normal length totally conceals scar	"Patient A" Hair lifted to show old donor scar
"Patient A" Hair just above old scar shaved, in preparation for donor harvest at second procedure	"Patient A" Going home that same day, with sutures in place.

There will always be a tiny percentage of patients, perhaps 5%, who have very rubbery and hyper-elastic skin, who will stretch to slightly wider donor scars, but usually we can predict ahead of time who these persons are and at the very least warn them of it and make sure that they are willing to wear their hair sufficiently long to hide any evidence that might result. For 95% of patients, keeping the strip narrow and using a double layer closure technique has resulted, in our hands, in consistently thin scars which are patients have been very happy with.

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"Patient B" 8 months after second transplant; hair lifted to show resultant scar	"Patient B" Donor hair shaved; scar from first two procedures noted as thin line near bottom of shaved area.
"Patient C" 8 months after HT#1, scar is present in area where hair is lifted up	"Patient C" Same day; Scar now able to be seen near bottom of shaved area.
"Patient C " Shows sutures in place, after shaved area removed along with old scar.

When we do second or third procedures, we always take the new strip from exactly above the old scar, usually removing the old scar in the process, so that, when the entire hair transplant procedure is completed, there is just one narrow scar resulting.

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"Patient D" 7 months after HT#1. Scar is in area where hair is lifted.	"Patient D " Close-up of scar after that area shaved prior to donor harvest at HT#2.

This is possible if one maintains around a 6-10 month interval between procedures, so that the scalp has a chance to regain its original laxity.

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"Patient E" Donor scar one year after HT#3, with hair lifted up for closer exam.

The problem of wide donor scars occurs when one attempts to take too wide of a strip or if the surgeon goes back in to reharvest the next strip only 3-4 months after the last one. Several examples of our scars are shown on this page.

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"Patient F" Female patient, one year after HT#1. Very thin scar present in area where hair lifted up	"Patient F" Same patient; with donor hair shaved, can barely make out paper-thin scar near bottom of shaved area from old donor scar.