Monday, July 07, 2008

Get a Full Head of Hair within 30 Seconds

Hair transplantation does not produce new hair, the procedure basically is the relocation of hair from the back of the scalp to the frontal area of the head. Since an adult head never decreases in size, we must take into consideration that the more hair loss one encounters, the larger the area of baldness there is to cover. Based on this fact, understanding and obtaining the best distribution of hair to cover weak areas of the scalp is of extreme importance when wanting to achieve the look of a full head of hair.

In 95% of men, the areas of greatest thinning are at the vertex and the center of the top of the head. Because of this, one who may start to experience balding should take into consideration hairstyles that will diminish the look of thinning hair. A center part is one style that can show weaknesses of thinning hair, as seen in the following pictures. Let's also take a look at pictures taken at the same time, but with a change in part location only. The difference is very clear:








The one and only exception that we have seen is Northwood class 2, as seen in this photo:





Monday, May 26, 2008

Sagittal vs. Coronal Incisions

Although coronal vs. sagittal incisions have been discussed over the years, there still are no definitive conclusions. Let us consider two aspects.

First, let's talk about the appearance of the results of the coronal vs. sagittal slits. The use of coronal incisions makes most sense only in areas where one can clearly see the hair's root. When viewing someone face-to-face one is able to clearly see the hairline, along with the hair's roots.


This is the part of the scalp where it makes most sense to use coronal incisions. When viewing the top of the head you can't see the coronal arrangements, because one cannot see the roots Therefore, using the coronal slits or the sagittal slits does not make much of a difference.



Secondly, we have not yet seen a study on the comparison of the regrowth rate of hair implanted using coronal vs. sagittal incisions. Therefore, we can only assume that because the coronal incisions are perpendicular to the blood vessels in the scalp, theoretically, they have a higher chance of damaging the blood supply. Therefore, the follicle survival rate should be higher when using the sagittal incision, due to less blood vessel damage.

According to the above reasons, we here at NHTMC only use coronal incisions for the hairline and sagittal incisions for the rest of the scalp. Here is a photograph for better viewing of our technique:








Thursday, May 01, 2008

Happy Patients

Great results don't require using all single follicular units. For this fine haired gentleman, we only used 50 single follicular units (SFU's). Please listen to his testimonial.

One Surgery
Donor Size=30 sq. cm, Coverage Area=92 sq. cm.
Density=30/92 which gives 32%
Number of grafts used: 50 single follicular units &
1232 modified follicular units. Total number of grafts=1282

Date of surgery-August 9, 2007 and then eight months after one surgery (Photo taken on April 24, 2008)



Monday, March 31, 2008

Super Dense Packing-92 grafts per sq.cm.

Surgery Date: December 7, 2006


Patient designs preferred eyebrow shape.



The length of the eyebrow is about 5 cm.


The widest part is 0.6 cm.


The narrowest part is about 0.2 to 0.3 cm.
The eyebrow area is 5 cm x 0.6 cm=3 cm2 on each side.


The eyebrow outline is about 11 cm (5cm +5cm+0.6cm +0.3cm).
We made 125 slits on the outline, the distance between each graft is about 0.8 mm.


We made 277 slits on an area of 3 cm2.
(The slit number depends on graft number available.)




This photo shows same direction of transplanted hair and original eyebrow hair.
(Coarser hair is the transplanted hair and the fine hair is original eyebrow hair.)




We transplanted 277 grafts on one side of eyebrow (area=3cm2).
This is about 92 grafts in one centimeter square.



June 20, 2007
Six months after surgery- Our patient was very happy with the results. We have achieved his goal in one surgery.



Comments:
The average density on this eyebrow is 92 grafts per cm2. Should I be proud of it? No. Not at all. Every hair transplant facility should have no problem to achieve this super dense packing. As long as you make the slits very small and trim all the tissues around the hair.

Our clinic can achieve 92 % density easily, but why we do not perform super dense packing on all hair transplant procedures?

I have checked the growth rate of the eyebrow hair six months after the surgery; the total re-growth is 455 hairs. The growth rate is 82%. Our average growth rate for hair transplants on the scalp is about 96%. In other words, with the super dense packing technique, we have sacrificed 14% of hair.

The super dense packing method is not suit for all potential hair transplant patients. Factors such as skin color, contrast, hair quality, degree of baldness and the texture of someone's hair can require a different size of graft to achieve the best result. We will work with cases individually to best fit the wants and needs of the patient.

For comparison reasons, please see the following three photos:

Our regular hair transplant grafts



Grafts used for super dense packing



Grafts used in live surgery meeting


Which one do you think will have the best growth rate?