Follicular Unit Hair Transplant

For contemporary hair transplants, there are two basic methods of harvesing donor hair. The conventional strip technique and follicular unit extraction. In Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) technique donor hair are harvested one by one and is therefore more labour intensive. During this technique a small micropunch usually sized 1mm or smaller is used to isolate a group of hair from its skin attachments. These groups having one to four hair, called follicular units, are then gathered (pulled out) from the head. This leaves a pin point wound from the area of harvest. In this way the hair are taken out one after another, until adequate number of hair required for that session have been harvested. This surgery is done at a "micro" level and requires 8X magnification and expert hand control. Since FUE procedure requires careful and delicate handling, it is possible to harvest only 1200-1500 follicular units per session. An average session may last 8 hours and may need to be...

Follicular unit is a natural grouping of one or more hairs in the scalp. Follicular units also contain sebaceous (oil) glands, arrector pili muscle, and nerves and blood vessels. This can be likened to a family of hair . If you separate a person from his/her family, he may survive but will not be happy. These Follicular units terminal (and occasionally a velus) hair are so close together that it is not feasible to separate them, without compromising the growth. This is how a follicular unit looks like. On the left is a two hair unit and on the right is a single hair unit. So, what is advantage of this follicular architecture?? How does this affect your hair transplant? I shall discuss this in my next blog.