Use of hair pores to determine the orientation of collagen fibers in skin

Most people are interested in recovery of skin defects caused by burn, scal d or trauma from the aesthetic and functional point of view. It will occupy an important role for successful skin graft for patients with such skin de fects that the orientation of collagen fibers in the grafted skin matches t o the fiber orientation in surrounding skin. There have been, to my best kn owledge, no methods for determining the orientation of collagen fibers in t he skin from the clinical point of view. Recently, the author has found a n ew method for directly determining the collagen-fiber orientation without c utting samples from a calf leather by analyzing the anisotropic shape of ha ir pore. Its principle is based on the quantitative evaluation of collagen- fiber orientation by approximating a hair pore to an ellipse. The results o btained by the new method using hair pores were supported by the microwave method, mechanical measurements and scanning electron microscopy. Such a me thod will be applicable for determining the orientational distribution of c ollagen fibers in skins of animals and humans and give a valuable probe for performing skin grafting based on the scientific data of hair pores. Anat Rec 263:161-166, 2001. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.