Hair Transplants overview & Brief History

The principal behind hair transplant surgery stems from the permanency of some hair. While some hair on your scalp has a transient life span, other hair tends to endure for a lifetime. It was found that permanent hair could be moved to any part of the body where it can continue to grow and behave as if it were still in its original site. A hair transplant is a safe, minor surgical procedure that involves removing donor hair from the back or sides of the scalp (donor area) and placing them into the bald or thinning areas of the scalp (recipient area).

Dr. Okuda, a Japanese dermatologist has first described the punch technique of hair transplantation in 1939. This was first applied on scalp of severe burned patients and it was noticed that there was considerable growth. Five years later, Dr. Tamura tried a micro grafting technique to restore female pubic hair, which was in demand from the Japanese society during that time. It was Dr. Orentreich from New York, who first performed hair transplantation in the western world in 1952. His findings were published in 1959 and it was since then that transplanted hair was more commonly used to cover naturally balding areas.

For 30 years the techniques have not shown any considerable improvement and it is only in 1990 that an innovative technique that gave natural results was firstly applied. This was the Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) Technique.

The FUT technique identifies the patient’s natural hair groupings called follicular units. These are then removed from the surrounding skin in a way that leaves them intact in their genetic form. They are then placed in the recipient area with the appropriate density, distribution, direction, angulation and orientation thus giving natural results.

FUT hair transplants can be performed in two different techniques:

• The “Strip Harvesting Technique” which involves removing a strip containing a large group of follicular units from the donor area 
• The “Follicular Unit Extraction” (FUE) Technique", which involves removing one follicular unit at a time directly from the donor area.

In addition to explaining our techniques we show a different result in every section, because we understand that what counts for the patient at the end of the day, is how he looks after the hair transplant. Such an example is the one below.

Click on image to enlarge

For more results, visit our Photo Gallery and see for yourself our excellent work.

For more information on Hair Transplantation please contact us for FREE Online Hair Loss Diagnosis and advice on your specific needs.