From "Revolutionary New Hair Transplant Tool Makes FUE Surgery Faster and Easier" below:

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Dr. James Harris has been recommended on the Hair Transplant Network for several years and has consistently gotten very good patient reviews. Impressive examples of his results can be found in the "Results Posted by Leading Hair Transplant Clinics" forum and hisrecommendation profile.

Dr. Harris is also world renowned and recognized among his medical colleagues as an innovator in refining and teaching follicular unit extraction (FUE). His two step FUE process, which he refers to as the "SAFE System", improves on traditional FUE by virtually eliminating follicle damage during the extraction process.

Follicular unit extraction (FUE) has become an increasingly popular procedure over the years due to its elimination of a linear scar and increased recovery time for patients.

Recently, Dr. Harris presented the "Powered SAFE Scribe", a new and revolutionary surgical FUE tool to his colleagues at this year's 2009 ISHRS (International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery) scientific meeting in Amsterdam. Research and testing have proven that this new powered instrument is even more effective than its manual, non-powered predecessor. The Powered SAFE Scribe is safe and effective in the hands of a skilled hair restoration physician and can reduce the time it takes to perform the procedure by half. Extraction rates of 500-700 per hour have been reported using the new powered version of the Scribe as opposed to approximately 200-300 with the manual one.

Surgeons who have used the powered SAFE scribe have reported the following benefits

* Reduction in pain
* Minimal scarring
* Almost all patients can become candidates for the FUE procedure
* Minimal follicle transection and damage
* Decreased time to perform the procedure (potentially leading to lower costs)

Let's give kudos to Dr. Harris for working to revolutionize and improve the follicular unit extraction procedure and making it a more viable solution to prospective hair transplant patients.

Bill

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Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

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To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

Interesting.

However, not clear to me. You first say After that you say Which one is it? Or, are those two statements, in your opinion, the same?
Also, not clear to me, but would like to know, after the follicle is extracted via FUE,is it examined? Is it checked for damage during extraction?... or not.
If not ,is it placed/planted regardless?

If yes. Who examines that? The surgeon or the tech?

Swim,

"Virtually eliminating" means that it comes very close to eliminating it altogether, but not completely. Thus, this phrase is equal to "minimal". Get it?

The procedures on how follicular units are inspected after extraction varies from clinic to clinic. Before implantation, follicular units are checked often with magnification by technicians before placement. Some clinics may even further trim the follicular unit of excess tissue in order to further refine it for a snug and perfect fit into the recipient site. Damaged follicular units would not be placed during the procedure.

I hope this helps.

Bill

__________________
Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

View our hair loss articles on Hub Pages

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-----

To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

Interesting. Any idea how this instrument compares to the one Dr. Feller recently revealed, in terms of similarities and differences in the tool's goal, design, etc. Also, I wonder if Dr. Harris has been using this tool on his FUE cases for some time with grown out results, or if it's an extremely recent innovation; and, what average session size range does Dr. Harris feel comfortable doing(?)

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*A Follicles Dying Wish To Clinics*

1 top-down, 1 portrait, 1 side-shot, 1 hairline....4 photos. No flash.

Follicles have asked for centuries, in ten languages, as many times so as to confuse a mathematician.

Enough is enough! Give me documentation or give me death!

Any pics of donor areas as this promises to achieve even less scarring?

For 6 months, I have been using my own prototype for FUE surgeries.
It has the advantage of turning alternatively with a very low angular motion, and the regulation of the speed is made using a foot treadle, allowing a work as refined as done by hand. However, the work is easier because the hand has only to maintain the punch on the right angle and it is no longer moving. Thanks to it, I increased a bit the speed of the extraction (but I did not reach 700 grafts per hour!) and nowadays I can reach 1500 grafts per day, instead of 1200. You can see a video of the work on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmwkg0eQI2Q

You will also see the results of the harvest, the first day, almost FU3 and FU4 only with a very low transection rate.
Concerning the transection rate, I do not think that the engine brings an improvement. It is more the experience of the surgeon and the size of the punches that influence the risk of transection.
As far as the size of the punches is concerned, I am not a small 0.7 mm punches believer. For several reasons, I use 1 mm punches rather. I was able to observe that, by using small punches, the transection rate is surely going to increase. Also, we are obliged not to take the most beautiful grafts as too big for the punch size. Finally we get little and poor grafts which are not, in my opinion, going to grow very well.
The scars obtained with 1 mm punches are frankly small and when the hair is cut very short I have not seen any difference of aspect on areas where a 0.7 or 1 mm were used.
If the patient says he wants to shave his head completely, I recommend him just to avoid any kind of hair transplant because both scars, made with 0.7 or 1mm punches, are still slightly visible.

I am working actively on another prototype; it should be ready in a few weeks. Some sophistication will be added but I will talk about them later on...

Dr Jean Devroye MD

www.hairtransplantsurgery.com
www.hair-transplant-pictures.com

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Dr. Devroye and his clinic were visited and carefully reviewed by the publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, Patrick Hennessey. To view photos and highlights from this visit, click here. Dr. Devroye is a member of the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians

There is more than one way to skin a cat - so to speak! I think the manual one or similar was used during my FUE.

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Dec. 2004 - 1938 Grafts via Strip
Feb. 2009 - 1002 Grafts via FUE

Does anybody know if any docs in the Texas area are using this technology?

Dr. Devroye,

Thanks for sharing information on innovations you've crafted to continue to improve FUE surgery as well. If you would like to send me information on this privately, I'll be happy to publish the content on our highly popular Hair Loss Q&A Blog as well.

This goes for any of our doctors working hard to improve and revolutionize hair transplant procedures.

Best wishes,

Bill

__________________
Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

View our hair loss articles on Hub Pages

Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Subscribe to our Newsletters | How We Recommend Physicians

-----

To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

Thana,

I couldn't tell you how it compares with Dr. Feller's new tool in terms of speed and effectiveness however, Dr. Harris was previously using another tool he called the "SAFE scribe", but it was manual rather than powered. Regarding grown out results, I think we ought to leave the additional details up to Dr. Harris who is welcome anytime to post on our forum.

Best wishes,

Bill

__________________
Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

View our hair loss articles on Hub Pages

Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Subscribe to our Newsletters | How We Recommend Physicians

-----

To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.