Human hair grows in tiny bundles called follicular units, which usually consist of 1-4 hair follicles. These units are seen on the surface of the scalp as a tiny group of hairs that appear to be growing together. In Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) hair transplantation, individual hair follicles are extracted without causing damage to the scalp. FUE is a technique that involves using a small punch to extract follicular units from a patient’s donor area and it hardly leaves visible scars. However, since every single follicle is extracted individually, this is a time consuming procedure. The benefit is that it is a controlled and careful method to extract donor hair, and is safer for the skin and scalp. Complications are very rare, and scars are hard to detect even after only a few weeks.

With strip surgery, a strip of skin containing hair follicles is cut from the back of the head. The strip size can vary but is typically 1-1.5 cm wide, 8-10 mm deep, and up to 30 cm long going from ear to ear. Removal of the strip leaves a large opening in the back of the head. Even the most perfectly performed strip-surgery will leave a linear scar and patients may suffer from numbness, pain and problems with hiding the scar. The donor area of a strip excision will require a longer recuperation time before it is fully healed.

Los Angeles Hair Restoration : Choosing A Hair Restoration Procedure

Deciding on which procedure is right for you depends on several factors. While the popularity of FUE has grown due to its minimally invasive nature in the way grafts are removed, strip is still the most widely performed procedure. However, FUE generally leads to higher patient satisfaction, quicker recovery, and less scarring of the donor area. FUE produces hundreds of tiny dot like scars which are generally even less detectable than the strip scar.

There are efforts to automate the FUE process ( such as the device called neograft ). It is the opinion of this author, that the drying effect of suction devices in extraction may be damaging to the grafts. . This is why patients can ask to have the suction turned off.  There are and other less controllable factors like the depth and graft integrity at placement. Therefore, additional refinements are needed to fully optimize these innovations

At DermHair Clinic in Los Angeles, Dr. Sanusi Umar who is a board certified dermatologist and faculty a the Harbor-UCLA medical center, has pioneered the field of FUE having invented tools for performing the procedure, and has instructed other physicians in FUE methods. His FUE protocol is called UGraft advanced FUE. This protocol allows him to successfully harvest hair follicles from other non-traditional donor (outside of the head) including the nape, beard and other body areas. Dr Umar has the most extensive examples of hair restoration utilizing non head hair in the world. The use of non head hair for transplantation using FUE techniques is generally referred to as body hair transplantation ( BHT ). BHT is an advanced form of FUE for which Dr Umar is renowned as the leading world expert. With this protocol Dr Umar has restored even severely bald individuals as well as head donor depleted repair cases that have been written off by other hair experts.