Any typical numbers I can expect on the amount of FU's available for transplant for a second surgery given the exact same size strip?
I will speculate about 70% of the original amount due to the scar and also a slightly thinner harvest area. This is just a guess though, any of you veterans of HT wars have thoughts. ( Happy Veterans Day to all who have served)
Cheers

Salt-N-Peppa,

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure, because it depends on a case by case, but I'd say your assessment may be close to accurate. I might push it as high as 80 percent, however, it really depends on the width of the strip and the width of your scar if you think about it. You could easily do the math if you knew the width of your strip from the last surgery and you measure the width of your scar. You could take the width of the scar and divide it by the width of the strip and then subract your quotient by 100 and then have your percentage. Then you could take the amount of grafts and multiple it by your percentage as a decimal point. That should give you a pretty close to accurate answer.

However, you have to consider that the good doctor may not be able to take the same size strip due to laxity issues. Of course, it may be possible...but it may not be feasible.

As for my case, I actually had a bigger surgery each time...but I also went to a different doc each time who's philosophies are somewhat different from one another. All good docs, but some more conservative than others.

Hope this helps.

Falc

FWIW, my first HT produced a 30cm by 1.5-1.8 cm strip. This strip generated 4944FU's. My plan ( assuming laxity and safety) is for a much smaller 2nd HT of about 2000FU's. I realize that would mathmatically rate a strip of about 40% the original size. Reality though tells me the scar and the thinned out donor strip will require something larger to get about 2000FU.....I was just looking for other members approximations from there 2nd ( or 3rd) procedures. Cheers.