The changes in hair growth pattern after autologous hair transplantation.

BACKGROUND: Recently donor dominance has been emphasized in autologous hair transplantation while the influence of the recipient site has been considered negligible. In fact, there have been few studies that show this. OBJECTIVE: This study was performed to examine the influence of the recipient site on transplanted hairs. A clinical study of 19 leprosy patients was performed. These patients had received single hair transplantation due to madarosis and were admitted to The Leprosy Mission, Jesus Hospital, Taegu, Korea, or had visited its outpatient clinic. METHODS: In this study, the rate of growth, thickness of shaft, and graying rate between the transplanted eyebrow hair in the recipient site and scalp hair near the donor site were compared to observe the changes in the growth pattern of the hairs after transplantation. RESULTS: For most of the patients, the growth rate and graying rate of transplanted hairs were lower than those of hairs in the donor site. CONCLUSION: It seems that the recipient site may have an influence on the transplanted hairs. Further studies are needed, including clinical, histopathologic, and molecular biological methods.

Lipid composition of the stratum corneum of the sole in patients with leprosy.

Several reports support the view that changes of composition of the stratum corneum (SC) lipids may be the cause of impaired barrier function which, in turn, gives rise to xerosis and ichthyotic skin in leprosy. Many reports about abnormalities of serum lipids and cutaneous manifestations, such as xerosis and ichthyotic changes in leprosy, led us to the idea that the composition of SC lipids in patients with leprosy may be different from that in normal subjects. However, the many studies done in the past do not sufficiently account for this. To investigate the composition of SC lipids in patients with leprosy, thin-layer chromatography (TLC) was undertaken. Extraction of the SC lipids with a methanolchloroform-H2O mixture (4:2:1.6, v/v/v, Bligh-Dyer solvent) was carried out after shaving of the SC from the sole. TLC was performed and the composition of lipids was quantitated by photodensitometry. Our study revealed that the composition of SC lipids in the anesthetic lesions of leprosy patients was higher in cholesterol sulfate and triglycerides and lower in sphingolipids and cholesterol esters than that of normal subjects.