Is A Hair Transplant Worth It?

So you are considering a hair transplant?  Hair transplantation procedures have improved over time.  Normally  the hair graft that will be planted is taken from the backside of the head of the patient with the help of microscope-dissection. Afterwards, the follicular graft is kept in a saline source in order to keep it in the same condition as it was. Finally, the graft is fitted into it proper place.

The average  hair transplant surgeon makes use of 500-600 follicular unit grafts in a single day. This technique in less desirable for some due to high complexity and large time duration involved in the process. But there is another promising method called follicular unit extraction (FUE) that takes far less time and is less stressing on the body. This technique is more advanced and hence, costs more (normally twice) than the standard follicular hair transplantation.

The follicular unit of the adult human scalp consists of 1-4 terminal (full thickness) hair follicles.  There are 1-4 terminal (full thickness) hair follicles in the follicular unit of an adult that can be extracted using FUE technique. This process involves making a small punch into the patient's donor area. The purpose of punch is to separate the follicular unit from the soft tissues that surround it. The follicular unit is now called a blunt dissection. The scars left behind are healed within a few days and can't be seen after the hair growth has occurred.

But, as the standard strip excision method is less costly than the FUE procedure, it is still widely used by the hair transplant clinics. Still there is another good procedure called trichophytic closure technique that makes FUE technique less appealing by reducing further the appearance of linear donor scars.

The focus of new research is shifting towards hair cloning.  Once the research in this field gets successful, this strategy can be used to produce as many copies of the donor hair as required and then can be used in the standard transplantation procedures. One of the hurdles in traditional transplantation procedures is the unavailability of the required follicular units from the donor that can be resolved by hair cloning. As, with the help of this procedure many copies of a single hair can be obtained.

But still there are several problems to be resolved first in order to make the cloning procedure applicable in practicality, like the safety of the cloned hair, after effects, etc. Besides research in hair transplantation the advancements in drug therapy is also not behind and is trying to solve the problem of thinning hair effectively in the form of some medications like Provillus or Rogaine.