Hair Transplant

Hair transplantation is a surgical technique that involves transplant follicles from donor site to balding parts (the recipient site). It is primarily used to treat male pattern baldness. Grafts containing hair follicles that are genetically resistant to balding are being used for hair transplant.

There are mainly two methods for hair transplant nowadays. One is follicle unit transplantation (FUT); the other is follicle unit extraction (FUE).

Follicle unit transfer involves strip harvesting, and transplanting grafts into bald area. Strip harvesting is a procedure during which a strip of scalp is removed under local anesthesia, the wound is then sutured back together and this piece of scalp tissue is then cut in to small pieces of tissue called grafts which are then transplanted back in to the thinning or baldy area of the patient's head. This method will leave a linear scar in the donor area, which should be covered by a patient's hair which means that the scar is invisible. The transplanted area will have a natural appearance because they are from your own hair. Hair grows in graft which usually contains a group of 1-4 hair follicles, and this technique transplant hair in their natural groupings.

Follicular Unit Extraction or FUE also involves harvesting. However, for this technique, individual follicles of hair are removed under local anesthesia; this removal procedure uses tiny punches of between 0.6mm and 1.25mm in diameter. Each follicle is then reinserted back in to the scalp in the thinning area using a micro blade. Because individual follicles are removed, there will be many tiny scars left on the donor sites.

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.