Frontal forelock pattern on 41 y/o Norwood VII male (2692 grafts)

[Dr. Michael Beehner]

This 41 y/o male had his first of two transplant procedures with us, 1498 grafts, on January of 2015, and then had a second similar-sized session of 1194 grafts one year later in January of 2016. He returned this week to show me his results thus far. He may or may not have one more session. Overall, we placed 2692 grafts, made up of 2222 FU's and 420 MFU's (4-6 hair grafts, placed centrally for density). He received 5327 hairs in all. His donor density was very poor and 50% of his FU grafts were 1-hair and the other half were 2-hair ones. He had virtually no 3-hair grafts.

The chief goal with a frontal forelock, this being what I call my "shield" pattern forelock, is to frame the face, and I feel we accomplished this for this very bald patient, using less than ideal donor hair.

The reason for using a forelock is always for the purpose of accomplishing a lot with very little, at least visually as the patient is viewed from the front and the front-side angles. The rear vertex region is always somewhat neglected, for the very reason that there isn't enough donor hair to do anything there. One extreme approach for a patient this bald is to scatter FU grafts with equal light density over the entire balding area. I would submit that most of the time that will look like nothing was done. It's a total "see-through." With a forelock approach, gradients of density are created to frame the face in the front-central aspect of the scalp, with gradually fading densities going away from it toward the sides and rear.

Mike Beehner, M.D.

[Mathe]

This is a superb result considering the starting point and donor quality.

 

 

Well Done !

 

The patient must be delighted