I am a fair-skinned redhead. Let’s say I got a severe burn requiring a skin graft, and that the grafted skin came from a donor. Would the grafted skin grow hair? If the graft came from a dark-haired donor, would the grafted area grow dark hair? If the graft came from a black donor, would the skin remain brown?
Thanks in advance.
I’ve never heard of skin for a graft coming from a donor. Normally skin grafts are taken from an unaffected area of your own body so there are no rejection problems.
There is ‘artificial’ skin that is grown in culture and made from human foreskins (pleasant thought huh?) but I gather that dies before your own blood supply contacts it and is mainly used to seal burns etc. Of course there is no hair in cultured skin.
Even if skin were to come from a donor for some reason there would be no purpose in leaving it there after the wound had healed. This would require lifelong anti-rejection medication. It would make more sense to gradually remove the grafted area and either graft it with more of your own skin, or just let scar tissue develop. If this did happen for some reason, then, yes the hair and skin tone would remain the same as the donor while the donor grafted skin remained.
There are pictures available on the web somewhere of the recipient of the worlds first hand transplant, and both the hair and the skin colour are noticably different from his own skin.
(Just as an aside it looks like he could lose the hand (again).
When skin is transplanted, how thick is the layer cut? If it’s thin, then hair won’t grow from it.
When hair is transplanted during a hair transplant, the layers of skin and hair follicles removed are pretty thick, maybe about a quarter inch thick. I’m guessing that the skin in skin grafts is cut thinner than that, and as a result a lot of the hair follicles aren’t transferred to the recipient site. You end up with a pretty unhairy patch of skin.
From what I understand most skin for grafts is taken from the buttocks, although it can be taken from the back too. So unless you have a really hairy a** or back, there would be no hair (other than those babyfine hairs).
You donate your own skin grafts except in the case of that cultured “skin” stuff. Judging from the skin grafts a couple of my family members have had, there is no hair on the grafted area. It’s smooth and shiny.
Not sure about the hair growth question, but I did address some of the other issues related to skin grafts in this Straight Dope staff report: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mskingraft.html
Just the other day I saw a guy who had obviously been severely burned on his face and arm and he had several skin grafts on his face. The reason I surmised he had several grafts was because there were distinct patches that varied significantly in coloration, from an almost ivory white to suntan brown to sunburn red.
These were old injuries and, besides the different colors, there was a lot of scarring and his face was distorted. I seem to recall (I was trying not to stare!) that his ears were either absent or greatly reduced. He must have been really seriously burned.
IIRC, and my recollection is hazy, he didn’t have any eyebrows but he did have a mustache.