Hair Transplant Technique

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Hair Transplant Technique

• Hair transplantation is a surgical technique that
  moves individual hair follicles from a part of
  the body called the 'donor site' to bald or
  balding part of the body known as the 'recipient
  site'. It is primarily used to treat male pattern
  baldness. In this minimally invasive procedure,
  grafts containing hair follicles that are
  genetically resistant to balding are transplanted
  to the bald scalp. It can also be used to restore
  eyelashes, eyebrows, beard hair, chest hair,
  pubic hair and to fill in scars caused by
  accidents or surgery such as face-lifts and
  previous hair transplants. Hair transplantation
  differs from skin grafting in that grafts contain
  almost all of the epidermis and dermis
  surrounding the hair follicle, and many tiny
  grafts are transplanted rather than a single
  strip of skin.
• Since hair naturally grows in groupings of 1 to 4
  hairs, todays most advanced techniques harvest
  and transplant these naturally occurring 14 hair
  "follicular units" in their natural groupings.
  Thus modern hair transplantation can achieve a
  natural appearance by mimicking nature hair for
  hair. This hair transplant procedure is called
  Follicular unit transplantation (FUT). Donor hair
  can be harvested two different ways strip
  harvesting, and follicular unit extraction (FUE).

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HEREDITARY BALDNESS

• IS BALDNESS HEREDITARY?
• Hair loss suffered by men that has a tendency to
  run in families is called male pattern baldness
  (MPB). This hereditary hair loss condition
  usually starts when a man is in his early
  thirties, although it can start earlier or later
  in life, and ends in everlasting baldness, my
  hair loss started in my mid twenties, as did my
  twin brothers.
• At present there is no way to avoid male pattern
  baldness from happening and the precise causes
  are still to be entirely understood. However,
  medical doctors agree that androgenetic alopecia
  has both hormonal and genetic influences.
• GENETIC CAUSES
• The hair follicles in men who suffer from male
  pattern baldness appear to be genetically
  predisposed to being more vulnerable to the toxic
  effects of testosterone and DHT later in life.
  This hereditary disadvantage makes it probable
  for the DHT to cause restricted hair growth more
  easily and fully on the scalp. It is believed
  that this difficulty of the hair follicle is
  handed down through DNA from generation to
  generation.
• The genetic side of male pattern baldness can
  also help men better comprehend their chances of
  developing androgenetic alopecia and better
  comprehend how the condition will individually
  disturb them. A man can normally locate his
  predisposition for hair loss by studying the
  tendency for baldness on both the mothers side
  and fathers side of the family. By defining if
  the men in the family have a tendency to be bald,
  how acute their baldness is, what pattern the
  hair loss follows, and the age of the original
  hair thinning men will be capable of predicting
  their own baldness course and take steps to
  organize for the eventual hair loss.

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Follicular unit transplantation (FUT)

• FOLLICULAR UNIT HAIR TRANSPLANT STRIP METHOD
• Follicular unit transplantation (FUT) consists of
  using hair units in their naturally occurring
  pattern. Hairs occur in groups of one, two, three
  or four referred to as Follicular units. By
  transplanting hair in this natural pattern, the
  cosmetic results are more natural.  For this
  reason, it is called the Rolce Royce of hair
  transplantation.
• MEGA AND GEGA SESSIONS
• Mega sessions allow for the achieving of more
  graft transplants in less time. One to two mega
  sessions often produce very cosmetically
  attractive results. During a session, 3,000 to
  4,500 hairs are placed in the patients scalp in
  a 5 to 6 hour span.
• HOW IS THE PROCEDURE PERFORMED ?
• The procedure is performed under local
  anesthesia, as follows
• A Strip of hair is  taken from back of scalp.
• The donor area is then stitched.
• The donor graft is then dissected into follicular
  units of 2 hair, 3 hairs and single hair using
  microscope.
• The follicular units are then implanted over the
  recipient area.
• Patient is sent home the same day with a simple
  dressing.

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Follicular unit extraction (FUE)

• With Follicular Unit Extraction or FUE
  harvesting, individual follicular units
  containing 1 to 4 hairs are removed under local
  anesthesia this micro removal typically uses
  tiny punches of between 0.6mm and 1.0mm in
  diameter. The surgeon then uses very small micro
  blades or fine needles to puncture the sites for
  receiving the grafts, placing them in a
  predetermined density and pattern, and angling
  the wounds in a consistent fashion to promote a
  realistic hair pattern. The technicians generally
  do the final part of the procedure, inserting the
  individual grafts in place.
• FUE takes place in a single long session or
  multiple small sessions. This is considered to be
  more time consuming, depending on the operator's
  skill, and there are restrictions on patient
  candidacy. Clients are selected for FUE based on
  a fox test, though there is some debate about the
  usefulness of this in screening clients for FUE.
• FUE can give very natural results. The advantage
  over strip harvesting is that FUE harvesting
  negates the need for large areas of scalp tissue
  to be harvested, so there is no linear incision
  on the back of the head and it doesn't leave a
  linear scar. Because individual follicles are
  removed, only small, punctate scars remain which
  are virtually not visible and any post-surgical
  pain and discomfort is minimized. As no suture
  removal is required, recovery from FUE is within
  7 days.
• Disadvantages include increased surgical times
  and higher cost to the patient. Some surgeons
  note that FUE can lead to a lower ratio of
  successfully transplanted follicles as compared
  to strip harvesting. Others also suggest that in
  case a patient would need more than one
  transplant, it would be difficult to find a good
  strip after an FUE.
• Robotic Hair Restoration is another innovative
  device in the field of hair restoration. The
  robot allows detection of the follicular units
  and its topography with several cameras. The
  images from the cameras can detect the location,
  distribution, and the angulation of the
  follicular grafts. The robotic arm has been able
  to increase the speed of graft extraction and
  minimize the exhaustion of the surgeon during an
  FUE transplant. Despite the advantages of robotic
  hair restoration systems, there are still some
  disadvantages such as the size of the punches
  being relatively large in comparison to what is
  used in other methods of FUE and the high price
  of the device .