So as it may seem, Acell and Plucking is not THE perfect solution for repair patients at this point in time.
Dr Cooley had recenly repsonded to some concearned question from repair patients. Here is what he said :
" I don’t know the actual success in scar tissue but I believe it depends on several factors. When I said 40-50% in an interview, I was referring back to several cases I had recently seen in followup. I have attached a couple representative photos. In these photos, you see the hair shaft sticking out from being implanted 6 months earlier, and new hair sprouting out from around it. However I later had cases where the success was lower or even zero, as in EJ’s case, which is very disturbing to me. I suspect that the wider and thicker the scar tissue, the lower the success. We need mesenchymal stem cells to make the follicle regeneration work, and they are likely absent in scar tissue. At this point, I prefer to tell patients that plucking doesn’t work well in scar tissue but that we are actively working on techniques to overcome this.
So the problem here is as stated the wider and feshier your scar is actually the more you should expect plucking not to work or to work in a very low yield rate but they are trying to overcome this.
Another remark from Doctor Cooley was :
"Sometimes the implanted hair seems to grow and sometimes new hair is seen branching out from the implanted hair, in which case the ‘stub’ is eventually shed or can be plucked out. (He talks about scar implanting here)
These are 6 month photos so the hair may be thin because of that or because plucked hair growing in scar tissue is thinner. I don’t have enough data to anwer that yet. I predict they will be thinner because they are probably made up of fewer mesenchymal cells. Plucked hair that grows in non-scarred scalp looks normal, and is usually indistinguishable from surrounding hair. "
So to underline the findings we can say or at least Dr Cooley sees that plucked hairs which are transplanted in normale scalp skin grows normal just like your normal hair.
The problems are scars here and only scars. Those findings actually support the argument of autocloned hairs. Because Acell works like it should it can regenerate in healthy tissue but not in only fleshy tissue without receptoring cells around it.
My idea or what i would do right now in this situation is. To slightly thin the scar and also “damage” the scar tissue and then reinsert plucked hairs to see if it will only depend on the scar itself.
Conclusion here : Right now Acell has its limitations when it comes to scar tissue but works pretty good and as it should in healthy skin with plucked hairs.