Surgical Hair Restoration: the final solution for Androgenic Alopecia

Surgical Hair Loss Restoration – great potential for treatment

There is nothing new about the problem of hair loss. Hair loss can occur due to a number of reasons. The reasons can be physiological, psychological, genetic or a combination of all these. People have been in search of prescriptions for hair loss restoration since the dawn of civilization. The very first known hair loss restoration formula was written in the Elbers Papyrus of ancient Egypt!

Apart from the treatment of male and female pattern baldness (androgenic alopecia), surgical hair restoration has great potential for hair loss restoration in facial and scalp reconstruction cases. It is of great help in hair transplant repair in situations where the patient has previously undergone a bad hair transplant; as suggested by, Hair transplant Surgeon Alfonso Barrera (Department of Plastic Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine):

• surgical hair restoration can help regain hair lost as a result of post-surgical scarring ( procedures involving incisions on hair-bearing facial skin or scalp).

• surgical hair restoration can correct unfavorable results from previous hair transplantations, such as the “plug look” caused by the old hair plug transplantation technique, and can be used to camouflage scars from flap procedures or scalp reductions.

• surgical hair restoration can help restore scalp and facial hair lost as result of burns or traumatic injuries.

• surgical hair restoration is helpful in cases where hair loss is attributable to congenital causes, such as complete bilateral cleft lips (no mustache hair in the pro-labium) and triangular alopecia, or to remove congenital nevi or arteriovenous malformations.

• to restore hair lost after oncologic resections (resection of melanoma and other skin malignancies) surgical hair restoration is effective.

Surgical hair loss restoration - evolution of the process

Surgical hair restoration as a process has progressively evolved to give its patients more aesthetically pleasing results. It has given higher satisfaction rates for people who made a well-informed decision to go for the surgical hair restoration.

The old plug grafting techniques of hair restoration surgery of 1980s and the more invasive surgical hair restoration procedures of 90s, such as flaps, plug grafts, scalp lifts, and scalp reductions have gradually given way to cutting-edge surgical hair restoration procedures such as the use of mini-grafts and micro-grafts. The follicular unit transplantation, along with its associated state of the art techniques of single strip donor harvesting and stereomicroscopic graft dissection described in detail in the section hair transplant procedures is the state-of-the-art techniques conducted by most well-known hair loss restoration surgeons.

Over the years the number of sessions required for surgical hair restoration has also decreased. A modern hair transplant surgeon prefers a long session of a thousand or more grafts to 3-4 small sessions with fewer Hair Transplant grafts (300-400), as was done in the older surgical hair restoration procedures. And like any other upcoming branch of medical science, new surgical hair restoration procedures are always being developed by innovative hair restoration surgeons which are targeted towards decreasing the trauma to the recipient sites caused by hair transplant procedures and to produce quicker healing and hair loss restoration.

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Another issue of foremost importance to the hair transplant surgeons and patients alike is that once hair restoration surgery is performed, it should leave minimum postoperative detectable deformities behind. The showing of scars, patches and unnatural hair lines are the most detectable deformities that result from un-planned, additional surgical hair restoration procedures.

As you read through the surgical hair restoration web-pages you will be able to appreciate the fact that it requires a great deal of future planning by a hair transplant surgeon with due consideration for the patient's hair density, hair characteristics (color, curl, caliber), age, degree and type of hair loss, previous procedures, potential for "shock loss" (telogen effluvium), and of course, the budget.

The sections under surgical hair restoration have been designed to give you the step-by-step information on various aspects of hair transplant surgery, so that you can take a well-informed decision to go to a hair restoration surgeon who, apart from being a skilled surgeon in the hair transplant procedures, has aesthetic and ethical qualities along with a the vision to help you make an appropriate and realistic decision so as to derive optimum benefits from the surgical hair restoration.

Reference:

Alfonso Barrera, M.D., ‘The Use of Micrografts and Minigrafts in the Aesthetic Reconstruction of the Face and Scalp’ Plast Reconstr Surg, September 1, 2003.