The ISHRS (International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery) hosted its 20th yearly conference on Paradise Island of the Bahamas in October. Among the attendees was Dr. Sanusi Umar, leading follicular unit extraction (FUE) surgeon and one of the pioneers of body hair transplant (BHT).
The ISHRS conducts this conference as the primary gathering for surgeons, clinic consultants, researchers, surgical techs, and others to persist in their education and training, and to be informed about new technologies in the hair restoration field. The conference, which started this year on October 17 and ended October 20, generally consists of lectures, symposiums, debates, panel discussions, video surgery, live patient viewing, and workshops; for the combined goal of evolving hair transplant developments even more and keeping the key populace involved in the process.
Dr. Umar was invited to share his advanced knowledge of follicular unit extraction by taking on an instructor role for an FUE training workshop. Within the video presentation segment of the four-day gathering, he also unveiled, for the first time ever, his sophisticated FUE and body hair transplant harvesting device. This handheld tool, named the uGraft, uses a microscopic punch with special tips, fitted onto a rotary mechanism. The device enables customized graft excision while decreasing incidence of transection and graft burial. Ultimately uGraft improves the viability of each extraction.
Just seven years prior, at the 2005 Las Vegas conference, Dr. Umar presented before the ISHRS for his first time, in the year that also had the first BHT presentation. He was given a seven-minute slot to impart his case studies using body hair. When his allotted time expired, he received unanimous commendation from other doctors and medical professionals who were attending.
Body hair transplant and Dr. Umar’s outstanding work with the cutting edge method have since been identified recurrently by the ISHRS, and numerous esteemed medical journals, like The Archives of Dermatology, The Annals of Plastic Surgery and Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery (formerly British Plastic Surgery Journal).