You have to consider of graft thickness and donor site.

For example: Scalp donor-site, 0.2-mm split-thickness skin graft, about 10 days to two weeks.

Also Zakine and colleagues could that confirm in their histologic study:

Zakine G, Mimoun M, Pham J, Chaouat M. Reepithelialization from stem cells of

hair follicles of dermal graft of the scalp in acute treatment of third-degree

burns: first clinical and histologic study. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2012

Jul;130(1):42e-50e.

In children, with graft thickness of 6-7 thousandths of an inch, we can re-harvest as early as 10 days, but better quality at 2-3 weeks. I have got no personal experience but I believe that topical growth factors can decrease these times by a couple of days.

depends epithelization time and changes from patient to patient. if you can see full epithelization at the donor area, you can re harvest again,personal experience: min 10 max 20 days.

To re harvest graft from same donor site, we also relay upon personal experience.  In other words at present we lack standardize practice for re harvesting graft from same donor site.

in my opinion reharvesting agraft from same donor site is not easy ...its timing depends upon previous graft harvest 

it also depens upon general condition of the patient and local condition of donor site itself ....in general composite bioengineered skin substitutes may be an alternative

My personal experience has been limited to the scalp, which has the anatomic advantage that the epidermal appendages i.e. hair follicles are in the fat. This means that you do not lose any with successive grafts.

When you take successive grafts you are taking epidermis that regenerates and dermis that does not so you want to have a donor area with lots of dermis. That makes scalp my first choice.

The only disadvantage is that is takes time and a dermatome. The time is invested in first shaving the scalp at least as widely as the borders of the dermatome, then injecting the entire scalp with enough saline so that it is tense and the injected saline is spouting from previous injection sites, then taking the grafts paralleling the scalp, finally washing and rubbing the dermal side of the grafts to remove the residual shafts.

The other advantages of the scalp are that the donor site is hidden once the hair regrows and that compared to other donor sites there is minimal pain.

I have reused the scalp in children as soon as 10 days taking grafts 0.008’’ thickness.

Skin graft donor area heals by 02 weeks, allow the newer epithelium to settle down nicely and you can use that area for reharvesting after 03 weeks. Graft will  come easily and will be thinner this time

In my opinion, reharvesting a donor area for skin graft depends upon thickness of previous harvest & obviously the time taken by healing. this is usually between 7 - 15 days for medium thickness SSG

Thanks for all those who responded/share their experience of re-harvesting graft from same donor site. What I concluded from the discussion that decision is pure clinical and personal judgement. 

To minimize the risk of  hiperthrophic scars at donor site, we avoid re harvest in areas different from scalp. Also, in our experience, the thickness of graft from scalp should not be more than 0.2 mm or 0.007 ". We have patients whose scalp was used  more than 10 times. After 12 days we can re harvest from scalp, since a thin split thickness skin graft is 

 Thanks Jayme for sharing your experience of graft taken from scalp. 

As far the risk of hypertrophic scar when graft re-harvested from sites other than scalp is concern,  it is very negligible provided graft harvested is thin and at-least 15-20 days time elapsed between two session. In a series of burn patients (n=28) when available  donor area was limited we re harvested graft 3 times from same donor side and observe hypertropic scar in only 2 cases.

Thanks for your comments Tahir!

I agree with the  risk of 7% (2/28) of hypertrophic scar in areas re-harvested different from scalp. On the other hand, when the scalp is available, we do not have seen hyperthrofic or keloid scars on it, if a thin split-thickness skin graft is harvested or re-harvested from this area. So, mainly in patients with a trend for pathological scars, the scalp is very safe as a donor site minimizing more chance of sequelae.

I`d like to share this article: 

Absence of pathological scarring in the donor site of the scalp in burns: an analysis of 295 cases. Burns. 2010 Sep;36(6):883-90.

Regards,

Jayme

Dear Jayme,

why do you think the scalp area is fairly resistant to hypertrophic scarring, whereas the face, neck and chest are so prone?

 Dear Roy,

We suppose that what most likely contribute to this resistance to hypertrophic or

keloid scarring at the scalp is the harvest of a thin split-graft skin (0.005–

0.007" in., around 0.15–0.20 mm). The scalp has a thickness of about 0.24 ". In contrast, the harvest of graft skin from the thigh and adjacent areas causes lesions of deeper skin structures, resulting in a higher risk of permanent scar formation. The skin of the thigh and adjacent areas is distinctly thinner than that of the scalp (lateral hip with an average thickness of 0.06").

Thank you!

Jayme

In case of huge post burn raw areas where the donar sites are limited we routinely  harvest graft from the same site at an interval of about 20 days.

Thanks Dr Umar Farooq.

What i conclude that to re harvest a donor area is entirly a subjective decision.

You are right sir . In the sense that after the healing  of donar site ,we decide about reharvesting graft from the same site.