THAT INFAMOUS MULTI-BLADED SCALPEL

[Guest]

i see talk about the multibladed scalpel and how its something to avoid. apparently its a good thing for the surgeon but not the patient. people have said it causes excessive follicle transection and loss while harvesting grafts. my question is....exactly where in the process is this multibladed scalpel used by those surgeons practicing this NON state-of-the-art technique? do they use this thing during the strip excision? is it a parallel 2-blade scalpel that makes both sides of the strip incision at the same time? i have never seen it explained what this thing does exactly. i need some knowledge upgrade on this.....comments Gary, Pat, anyone?

[arfy]

I believe that a multi bladed scalpel is used in the harvesting (first incision) to speed the dissection of the donor strip. A single or double blade is apparently considered acceptable to remove the donor strip. The real multibladed scalpels seem to have 8 blades (2 "outside" blades and six that subdivide the donor strip automatically).

 

Look at the NHI site (tons of good info there for the average guy: www.newhair.com) in the "Follicular Unit Transplantation" section. Click on the link for "Single Strip Harvesting" and look for the section that talks about "The Traditional 'Multiple-Strip' Method". This talks about using a multibladed scalpel directly on the patient, shows the scalpel, etc. (Sorry, I can't provide a direct link but you might want to read through this material anyway.)

[Guest]

Yes, it's used in the harvesting phase. It would certainly save time, but it has to cause more follicle transection. If you think about it, a single strip requires two incisions that are going to transect a certain number of follicles. Once you have the strip removed, it can be carefully divided into sections (hopefully without too much more transection) and then cut into follicular units. Basically, the more "blind" cuts you make, the more transection that is going to happen. Incidently, I believe that this is why the Wood's technique is "fraught with peril".