Hair Transplant - All You Should Know About It!

As the name suggests, hair transplant is a surgical procedure in which hair follicles are moved from one body part, the donor site, to a balding part of the body, the recipient site. Male pattern baldness can be primarily treated using this technique. Hair transplantation procedures can be used for restoration of a bald scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows, chest hair, pubic hair, beard hair, and to fill in surgery or accident scars etc.

Procedures of Hair Transplant
Hair transplantation is very different from hair grafting. Modern hair transplantation methods can be used to achieve the natural hair appearance because the original hair orientation can be mimicked. The various procedures involved in hair transplant procedures are-

Pre operative planning: The scalp or the target area of the patient is analysed. Pre-operative folliscopy is carried out to determine the hair density which helps to assess the post-operative results of the transplant. Patients are advised to refrain from taking any sort of medicine prior to the procedure as it might result in intra-operative bleeding thereby causing poor grafting. Patients are also asked to avoid alcohol and smoking because they can have a negative impact on the survival of the grafts.

Harvesting: The procedure for transplant is usually performed undermild sedation of local anaesthesia. The scalp is shampooed thoroughly and then treated with antibacterial agents before the donor scalp is harvested. There are various different hair harvesting techniques, each having its advantages and disadvantages. There are two major ways of extracting donor grafts-

1. Strip harvesting- This is usually the most common technique, where the surgeon removes a strip of the skin from the back of the scalp where the hair growth is good. This leaves a thin scar on the donor area. This strip is then grafted to the required balding area of the scalp.
2. Follicular unit extraction (FUE)- In this kind of harvesting, individual follicular units consisting of a group of 1 to 4 hairs are removed under local anaesthesia. This is a fairly lengthy procedure but gives natural-looking results.
3. Follicular unit transplant- This is the traditional method for hair transplantation in which a strip of hair is extracted and the strip is then dissected in order to separate individual grafts.
4. Robotic hair restoration- A robotic hair restoration device is used which utilizes cameras and robotic arms to assist the surgeon in the FUE procedure.

Types of Surgeries
Hair transplant surgery can be of many types including

• Androgenic alopecia- treating permanent hair loss
• Eyebrow transplant
• Frontal lowering of hair- natural high hairlines without any hair loss condition.

In case donor hair numbers are insufficient, body hair transplant can also be used. However, it is very important to assess the natural difference in colour and texture between the body hair and scalp hair.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!