FUE gains credibility in the hands of leading physicians

[Pat - Community Publisher]

As many of you know, the FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) procedure ??“ despite being heavily promoted online by certain clinics ??“ has suffered from many technical and logistical obstacles as well as inconsistant results. Fortunately several leading hair restoration physicians such as Dr. James Harris, Dr. Paul Rose, Dr. Bob Bernstein, Dr. Bill Rassman, Dr. Alan Bauman and Dr. Alan Feller have been busy working to overcome these obstacles.

 

Recently Dr. Jim Harris hosted a three day workshop on the Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) procedure at his clinic in Denver, Colorado. This workshop presented important advances and refinements in this technique that are making this procedure more viable by minimizing the transaction rate of hair follicles during the extraction process.

 

While the FUE procedure is still more time consuming and thus more expensive per graft than "Strip Excision", these recent refinements in technique promise to make the FUE procedure a viable compliment to the work horse Strip procedure. Most of the physicians recommended on this community provide the FUE procedure to their patients as an adjunct to Strip surgery.

 

The below attached JPEG files contain pages from an article written by Dr. James Harris about these recent FUE advances and his two step FUE technique that he calls the "SAFE" (Surgically Advanced Follicular Extraction) technique. I encourage all who are considering FUE to read this informative article.

 

To read a comparison between Strip and FUE procedures, as well as view video of the FUE procedure, click here.

 

 

Background Regarding the FUE Procedure

 

Today there are two methods of removing bald resistant follicles from the donor area of a hair transplant patient. The most popular and predominant method is the "strip" method in which a linear strip of hair bearing skin is removed from the donor area and then trimmed into individual grafts.

 

In recent years physicians have also experimented with using small 1mm punches to punch out and extract individual follicular unit grafts from the donor area. However, this "follicular unit extraction" or "FUE" technique often resulted in the follicles being transected (severed) by these small punches. The primary reason for this transaction was that the follicles beneath the surface of the skin often did not follow the same direction or angle as the hair growing out above them. Thus when a punch was used to remove follicles the punch would often transect the follicles that were largely sight unseen beneath the surface of the skin. Also multi haired follicular units some times splayed outward, making the base of these follicles vulnerable to being transected by a punch.

 

However, recent refinements in the instrumentation and technique of performing FUE now promise to significantly reduce such follicle transaction, while making the procedure easier to perform. To read about these advances, click on the below attached pages.

[Pat - Community Publisher]

As many of you know, the FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) procedure ??“ despite being heavily promoted online by certain clinics ??“ has suffered from many technical and logistical obstacles as well as inconsistant results. Fortunately several leading hair restoration physicians such as Dr. James Harris, Dr. Paul Rose, Dr. Bob Bernstein, Dr. Bill Rassman, Dr. Alan Bauman and Dr. Alan Feller have been busy working to overcome these obstacles.

 

Recently Dr. Jim Harris hosted a three day workshop on the Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) procedure at his clinic in Denver, Colorado. This workshop presented important advances and refinements in this technique that are making this procedure more viable by minimizing the transaction rate of hair follicles during the extraction process.

 

While the FUE procedure is still more time consuming and thus more expensive per graft than "Strip Excision", these recent refinements in technique promise to make the FUE procedure a viable compliment to the work horse Strip procedure. Most of the physicians recommended on this community provide the FUE procedure to their patients as an adjunct to Strip surgery.

 

The below attached JPEG files contain pages from an article written by Dr. James Harris about these recent FUE advances and his two step FUE technique that he calls the "SAFE" (Surgically Advanced Follicular Extraction) technique. I encourage all who are considering FUE to read this informative article.

 

To read a comparison between Strip and FUE procedures, as well as view video of the FUE procedure, click here.

 

 

Background Regarding the FUE Procedure

 

Today there are two methods of removing bald resistant follicles from the donor area of a hair transplant patient. The most popular and predominant method is the "strip" method in which a linear strip of hair bearing skin is removed from the donor area and then trimmed into individual grafts.

 

In recent years physicians have also experimented with using small 1mm punches to punch out and extract individual follicular unit grafts from the donor area. However, this "follicular unit extraction" or "FUE" technique often resulted in the follicles being transected (severed) by these small punches. The primary reason for this transaction was that the follicles beneath the surface of the skin often did not follow the same direction or angle as the hair growing out above them. Thus when a punch was used to remove follicles the punch would often transect the follicles that were largely sight unseen beneath the surface of the skin. Also multi haired follicular units some times splayed outward, making the base of these follicles vulnerable to being transected by a punch.

 

However, recent refinements in the instrumentation and technique of performing FUE now promise to significantly reduce such follicle transaction, while making the procedure easier to perform. To read about these advances, click on the below attached pages.

[Pat - Community Publisher]

Page 1 of the FUE article written by Dr. Jim Harris

[Pat - Community Publisher]

Page 2 of the FUE article written by Dr. Jim Harris

[Pat - Community Publisher]

Page 3 of the FUE article written by Dr. Jim Harris

[Pat - Community Publisher]

Page 4 of the FUE article written by Dr. Jim Harris

[Pat - Community Publisher]

Final page of the FUE article written by Dr. Jim Harris

[the B spot]

Good Stuff Pat! I enjoyed reading this article, and I can appreciate the forwarding of knowledge, but it seems to me that the instrumentation used creates another issue with the buried hairs after inplantation, as opposed to transected hairs before. I also noted that transection rates were still high (up to 15%) even with the blunt 1mm punch being used. I am wondering if the scarring is greater with a blunt instrument, simply because some amount of pulling or stretching should occur during excision of the FU. (anyone else?)

One thing I did not like was the idea that this method was somehow "easier" and that less skilled physicians could employ it. From my point of view, easier means less precise in the medical field, at times. I am glad that a doctor has come forward with transection rates, something the venerable Dr. Woods was unable to do. I am still convinced that FUE is either for very small cases, or to put the finishing touches on succesful strip surgeries.

Either way, it is great to see a Dr. put together a new system and look to share it with tthe entire community without charging 100,000 each to show others how to do it.