FUE Hair Transplant

comparing the advantages and disadvantages of FUE hair transplant vs traditional strip procedures.

Dr. Prabdeep Sohi

Compare FUE vs Strip Hair Transplant

FUE is now the most sought after alternative to traditional strip hair transplant procedures.

FUE stands for Follicular Unit Extraction. It is a process wherein individual follicular units containing 1 to 4 hairs are removed under local anesthesia; this micro surgical hair restoration procedure typically uses tiny extraction tools or punches measuring anywhere from 0.6mm and 1.0mm in diameter. Each follicle is then inserted into tiny recipient sites made by the surgeon using a placement tool. Because individual follicles are removed, only small, punctuate scars remain and any post-surgical pain is minimized. As no suture removal is required, recovery from FUE is a lot faster than traditional strip technique.

Comparing the Pros and Cons of FUE vs Strip Hair Transplant
	Strip Hair Transplant	FUE Hair Transplant
Stitches	Cutting open the skin and closing it with stitches So can have stitch related problems	No stitches Minimally invasive
Stretching of scar	Can prolong healing period and one has to avoid physical activity for weeks	No such problem and one can start physical activity soon after transplant
Recovery	2 – 3 weeks usually need 1 month of rest for atheletes, body builders etc	3-4 days. Exercise, weight training, sports, can be resumed in 4-5 days
Donor complications	Not uncommon e.g. wide scar, painful scar, delayed healing of stitches and give away of stitches	Practically nil
Short hair style	Scar becomes visible, so sporting long hair style is mandatory	Can easily sport short hair style
Numbness above stitches	Numbness above the stitches often last for months or permanently due to division of nerves in the line of cut	No numbness because there is no division of nerves
Pain in the stitches	Pain for 10-30 days and sometimes even permanently due to entrapment of nerve in the area of cut	Practically no post operative pain
Tightness in the donor area	Common for few months	Nil
Blood loss in surgery	More	Minimal
Operation time	Less	More
Donor hair availability	3000 and sometimes 3500 in one sitting Usually not more than 6000 in two or three sittings	5000 in one sitting Could be even more than 10,000 with body hair transplant
For grey hairs	Difficult to visualize and can have more transactions	Procedure and transaction rate remains unchanged with grey hairs
For limited or poor donor area	You cannot select good number of 3 and 4 hair grafts	Maximum number of 3 and 4 hair grafts can be selected to increase the number of transplanted hairs
For patients with tight scalp	Larger sessions and multiple sittings become difficult	Ideal method
Shock loss	More chances due to more invasive nature of procedureesp in the donor area	Rare, due to minimally invasive nature of the procedure
For those with more risk of scarring like Asians	More chances of stretched out scar and hypertrophic scar	Minimum such chances
Control on graft harvesting	It is possible that the strip may have less or more hairs than pre calculated	You can calculate and control the exact number of grafts extraction as you wish
Special advantages		With FUE, you can select single hair or multiple hair follicle when needed In patients with tight scalp or multiple strip scar only FUE is effective FUE can correct scarring caused by strip technique
Time for transplant	3000 grafts in 5 hours	3000 grafts in 10 hours
Surgeons time	Surgeon spends 20% of time Technicians spend 80% of time on the procedure	Surgeon spends 80% of time Technicians spend 20% of the time on the procedure

 The above is provided by Dr. Prabdeep Sohi and do not necessarily represents the opinions of HairSite.