Type of Surgery
Information
Last updated: 11/24/2009
Hair transplantation is a cosmetic procedure performed on men and occasionally on women who have significant hair loss, thinning hair, or bald spots where hair no longer grows. In men, hair loss and baldness are most commonly due to genetic factors...
and age. Male pattern baldness, in which the hairline gradually recedes to expose more and more of the forehead, is the most common form. Men may also experience a gradual thinning of hair at the crown, or very top of the skull. For women, hair loss is more commonly due to hormonal changes and is more likely to be a thinning of hair from the entire head. Transplants can also be performed to replace hair lost due to burns, injury, or diseases of the scalp.
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A physician shows the "up close" results of hair transplant surgery using the scalp of a patient. The hair replacement approach used mimics the natural direction of the hairs and shows the typical spacing of hair follicular units transplanted in the procedure.
In a hair transplant, plugs of hair and supporting tissues are removed from a donor area at the back of the head (A and B). Pieces of skin are removed at the front of the head, and grafts are placed (C). (Illustration by GGS Inc.)
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Other Information
Hair transplantation is a surgical technique that involves moving skin containing hair follicles from one part of the body (the donor site) to bald or balding parts (the recipient site). It is primarily used to treat male pattern baldness, whereby grafts containing hair follicles that are genetically resistant to balding are transplanted to bald scalp. However, it is also used to restore eye lashes, eye brows, beard hair, and to fill in scars caused by accidents and 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 follicles that contain groupings of 1 to 4 hairs, today’s most advanced techniques transplant these naturally occurring 1 – 4 hair "follicular units" in their natural groupings. Thus modern hair transplantation can achieve a natural appearance by mimicking nature hair for hair. This recent hair transplant procedure is called "Follicular Unit Transplantation."
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