Dr. Robert Bernstein Presents Latest ARTAS Robotic FUE Tech: Recipient Site Creation

[TakingThePlunge]

Recently, Coalition hair transplant surgeon, Dr. Robert Bernstein presented the latest advancements of the ARTAS Robotic Hair Transplant System at the Restoration Robotics ARTAS User Group Meeting in Laguna Niguel, CA.

 

The ARTAS system, which has been in use for the past 3 years to automate the harvesting of follicular units for FUE hair transplantation, now has the capability to also create recipient site incisions. This is an exciting "next step" in the future goal of fully automating hair transplantation.

 

To learn more about this latest development, see the article, "ARTAS Robotic Hair Restoration System Comes One Step Closer to Fully Automating Hair Transplants".

 

Have thoughts, concerns or questions about the ARTAS Hair transplant System? We encourage you to contribute to this discussion thread.

[Mickey85]

Oh man... The ARTAS has not been proven to provide even close to the claimed 96% yield(less than 4% transection rate) and they are saying this is the next step? Give me manual FUE with a skilled surgeon any day of the week.

[Bill - Seemiller]

Mickey,

 

I've always had reservations about fully automated surgical machines and procedures. While the ARTAS is truly innovative and revolutionary, it'll be interesting to see how it progresses and what place it actually has long term in modern hair transplant surgery. That said, I commend Dr. Bernstein for getting involved with the technology and presenting his findings with the overall community.

 

Best,

 

Bill

[Mickey85]

Mickey,

 

I've always had reservations about fully automated surgical machines and procedures. While the ARTAS is truly innovative and revolutionary, it'll be interesting to see how it progresses and what place it actually has long term in modern hair transplant surgery. That said, I commend Dr. Bernstein for getting involved with the technology and presenting his findings with the overall community.

 

Best,

 

Bill

 

I do agree that the premise is great, but in my opinion, the results executed via ARTAS have not lived up to the claims of the surgeons advocating/endorsing it, nor the manufacturers themselves. Believe me, there is no one else in the world that would love for a guaranteed mid-90% yield via FUE more than me. But I have not seen even close to that from the ARTAS... Just my opinion..

[GoForIt]

I do agree that the premise is great, but in my opinion, the results executed via ARTAS have not lived up to the claims of the surgeons advocating/endorsing it, nor the manufacturers themselves. Believe me, there is no one else in the world that would love for a guaranteed mid-90% yield via FUE more than me. But I have not seen even close to that from the ARTAS... Just my opinion..

 

 

I just wish there were less opinions on this and more facts. It wouldn't be too difficult to actually document the yields of different procedures.

 

My sense is that FUE, especially manual, has more opportunity for poor yields than FUT, but that some surgeons are very skilled and overcome this by their techniques.

 

In theory, I can see a robot making the recipient holes as a good thing - controlling the direction / depth precisely to restore a natural hair growth pattern. While many surgeons are excellent at this - looking at some of the cases here this is not universal.

 

I think HT transplant patients should begin demanding that these techniques be rigorously investigated to demonstrate that they're equal, or better. While seeing results is important - how many cases aren't posted due to poor results for all the great cases posted here?

[Thomas2012]

Goforit,

I agree with you, but how can even a FUT be monitored with accuracy compared to a FUE transplant? Lets say you get 2500 grafts either way, how can any hair clinic determine if 90 percent actually grow?? Counting hairs a year later? Maybe I am missing something here. Not trying to be sarcastic. Thanks.

[GoForIt]

Goforit,

I agree with you, but how can even a FUT be monitored with accuracy compared to a FUE transplant? Lets say you get 2500 grafts either way, how can any hair clinic determine if 90 percent actually grow?? Counting hairs a year later? Maybe I am missing something here. Not trying to be sarcastic. Thanks.

 

Yes, you can count hairs (or FU would be better). Pick an area of completely bald skin, put 4 dot tattoos at the corners with an area of 1cm, 2cm or whatever, and count the yield based on how many FU were placed.

 

This is how the studies on finasteride and minoxodil were done - and there are a few studies out there on various techniques for hair transplants.

 

There is so much hype in the FUT vs. FUE debate - but so little substance. Each physician I consulted with said that you can get great results with both procedures, but that the results for FUE were more variable. And then there is the motorized versus manual . . . . I know some physicians post excellent results here for FUE - but how many bad results not posted were there? This goes for FUT as well. We only see a snapshot of the physicians' results, the ones which came out the best.

 

I wish we could see how consecutive patients do - and whether a physician has a 1% rate of bad growth vs. 10%. Come to think of it - it would be such a service to this community if the physician members here could audit each other regularly for consecutive patients. Based on the level of growth and the number of grafts transplanted they could rate the results as excellent, good, fair, or poor, and then the results be a part of their profile. Talk about a pipe dream!

[Thomas2012]

GFI, Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the info.

With that said I would not be inclined to do a motorized FUE for the sole reason of margin of error. A doctor who is talented could be off a bit on a certain amount of grafts, human error, lets just call 5%, he or she is accountable. What if the machine is off? who is accountable? The doctor? The staff? The input person? I really think it reduces accountability of the physician's true skill set and ultimately liability. True the clinic ultimately takes a "marketing" hit, but ultimately the physician can say " the machine just wasn't good".

 

I do agree with you that yield should be monitored every time after a one year check up and results posted. I agree with you we only see a huge majority of good ones.