The ARTAS Hair Transplantation System For FUE

[Sean]

I just found these two cool news articles showing Dr. Rahal and the ARTAS system along with some Q&A. Hope it helps.

Hair Q&A with Dr. Hussain Rahal

http://www.canada.com/Life/All/Hair+...051/story.html

[PupDaddy]

According to Dr. Robert Bernstein on his site, the ARTAS currently uses "a sharp 1 mm punch" to cut through the upper part of the skin (epidermis and upper dermis), "immediately followed by "a duller, 1.3 mm punch" to "separate the deeper part of the follicular unit from the remainder of the dermis and subcutaneous fat." So the surface punch is 1 mm, which seems an acceptable size in terms of punctate scarring -- maybe not quite so good as the smallest manual punches, but small enough. Plus, I would think you would get a greater number of 2 and 3-hair FU's using a 1 mm surface punch.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday watching the various ARTAS videos on YouTube and reading about it on Dr. Bernstein's site. I have to say, it is very, very impressive. Precisely replicating perfect depth and perfect ANGLE of follicular unit scoring, over and over, quickly and efficiently, with computerized mapping to make the most efficient use of the donor, and without the fatigue of manual or hand-held motorized punches, looks to be a game-changer. And according to Dr. Bernstein, who was one of the first adopters, ARTAS beats the transection rate of manual extraction or hand-held motorized extraction -- especially for large sessions -- hands down:

“A follicular unit is about a half a millimeter and you have a one millimeter circle that has to go dead center over it to punch this out. So when you’re doing it by eye and you’re doing thousands of them over time you’re missing them over time it’s not exactly precise. The robot is dead center each time and follows the angle of the hair."

* * *

"There’s always damage to the follicles when you’re doing it [manually] because you’re doing it by hand through these very tiny incisions and so the yield is going to be less and so with a robot if you try to get out 100 follicles you’ll get very close to 100 follicles.”

I'm really interested to see yield and density from some of the top docs using ARTAS compared to their FUT or manual/hand-held motorized FUE results, and I'm especially interested to see 3,000+ single-day FUE cases from these docs now that ARTAS should make this more practical and repeatable.

[ej]

how can you put a 1.3 mm punch through a 1.oo mm hole ? ... unless you dont , and the actual wound size is in fact 1.3 mm which is huge !

ej

[PupDaddy]

Originally Posted by ej

how can you put a 1.3 mm punch through a 1.oo mm hole ? ... unless you dont , and the actual wound size is in fact 1.3 mm which is huge !

ej

Skin is elastic. The perimeter of a 1 mm hole that is cut into the scalp can momentarily be stretched outward. Based on Dr. Bernstein's description and the ARTAS videos, I would surmise that the 1 mm, sharp punch nests inside the 1.3 mm duller punch (the 1.3 mm dull punch is kind of a "sheath" around the 1 mm sharp punch) and that both can extend and retract independently. The 1 mm punch extends, i.e., emerges from within the outer punch, to cut the hole and hold it open momentarily for the 1.3 mm dull punch to slide over the inner punch into the hole. The minutely larger outer punch, having a rounded/tapered outer surface edge, slightly stretches the hole to accommodate it but doesn't cut the hole larger. The sharp inner 1 mm punch then retracts, leaving the duller 1.3 mm punch to extend farther forward into the hole to separate the "root" of the FU from the dermis and subcutaneous fat, and then retract, allowing the hole to snap back to its original size. Or so I would surmise.

When you watch the ARTAS videos, you see that all of this happens in an instant.

I doubt that the reputable docs who have adopted and/or helped develop the ARTAS (Harris, Bernstein, Rahal, etc.) would lie about the cutting punch size or use the thing on patients if unacceptably large holes were created -- something that would be evident as soon as the patient's donor area heals.

[ej]

sounds very traumatic for the skin and the surrounding follicles if this is indeed what happens .

I fail to see how a 1 mm punch can hold open a hole larger than 1mm for a larger punch 1.3 mm to slide into, blunt or sharp its a lot bigger .3mm diameter is a lot bigger than 1.00 mm , unless were talking internal diameter punch , were the outside would be say 1.2 mm , internal 1.00 mm with the outer punch 1.3mm sliding down to extract the graft over the outer 1.2mm punch , either way in my opinion all these punches are way to big and will cause white dot scarring and destroy valuable donor , i have read somewhere the manufactures are working on a smaller punch , however that doesnt help the guys who have allready jumped in the chair !

Perhaps some of the patients who won the competition with the Dr in California to have the procedure done could chime in and let us know how there donor area is looking

regards

ej

[HARIRI]

I think that the super talented FUE surgeons like Lorenzo, Bisanga, Feriduni, Umar and Feller will never fall for this robot. Most of them would even stick to the manual stuff where State of the Art is there. I'm not convinced at all with ARTAS robot until they minimize the incision size. I think its a tool to ease the doctor job and not to maximize results of patients! Who would love to be Guinea Pig and risk his valuable grafts and get big dots at the back of his head!!!

[PupDaddy]

I am not so dismissive of new technology, especially one that has been cleared by the FDA, developed in collaboration with experienced FUE surgeons, and purchased by some of the top names in the business. There have already been numerous "guinea pigs" during the clinical trials, and considering that ARTAS is now being used by Drs. Bernstein, Harris, Rahal, and others for their FUE cases, we should start seeing more and more patient results.

As we know, there are three primary challenges with FUE transplants, especially large session FUE transplants: (1) punching around the follicular units without transecting or otherwise damaging them, and doing so repeatedly, thousands of times, being dead center each time and precisely matching the angle of growth, (2) separating the follicular unit from the dermis and subcutaneous fat to enable extraction of the FU without undue torsion, yanking, or other forces that can damage it, and again, doing so repeatedly, thousands of times in a session, and (3) getting "chubby" FU's rather than "lean" FU's -- again, thousands of them so that the FU's that are transplanted will not only survive but mature well and flourish as well as FU's extracted via strip. ARTAS purports to address each of these challenges by perfectly, repetitively, and quickly (making possible mega FUE sessions) excising and separating for extraction healthy, robust follicular units that should yield growth percentages and hair maturity rivaling strip transplants -- something that even the most careful and gifted FUE surgeons using manual punches or hand-held motorized punches have yet to consistently achieve.

So I, for one, am optimistic about ARTAS as a game-changing tool for FUE, especially for large cases. I am especially interested to see results (including the appearance of the donor) of the first wave of Rahal patients whose FUE transplants are done with the assistance of the robot and whether his large ARTAS-assisted FUE cases consistently yield results as good as his large FUT cases.

[ej]

very technical and advanced machine , yet it still cant differentiate between light and dark hair ! how can it then ` feel ` an individual`s scalp as im led to believe all are slightly different ! I too would like to see results , especially of the donor , as stated earlier be good if a patient could post some

ej

[Sean]

I read that Adamo Papa had 2500 grafts extracted by ARTAS today by Dr. Rahal. Lets see how it looks like in the months ahead. He is willing to do continious updates to show donor and growth from ARTAS.

This article just posted and gives more info: Ottawa clinic hosts Canada


More info about it in this thread as well,
http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.co...nt-canada.html

[Sean]

Video: Ottawa clinic hosts Canada