FUE and leaving an area for FUT in the future

[TakeAction]

I want to maximize my donor area over my lifetime. From what I've read, combining FUT and FUE results in the most grafts possible over a lifetime.

Say a doctor will take up to 50 percent of the donor when doing FUE. That means if a patient maxes out their strips then does FUE on the rest of the donor, they will be able to extract whatever their lifetime maximum FUE grafts are PLUS 50 percent of their lifetime FUT grafts (since only 50 percent of the FUT region would have been extracted with solely FUE).

However, I'd like to start with FUE first and see if it could be sufficient before going to FUT.

I saw this post where a patient did a modified FUE where Dr. Saifi left a strip for future FUT: 

 

 

Of course that lessens the region that can be used for FUE in that procedure, but that's the tradeoff.

Has anyone else done this type of method and did you end up doing FUT down the line? Seems underrated to me and very useful to maximize lifetime grafts.

[Al - Moderator]

If you want to start off with FUE then I think you should just focus on the FUE. If you leave an area for possible FUT later then you're leaving out the best grafts with the most DHT resistance. I don't think that's the best idea. I'm saying this as someone who is still a fan of FUT in some cases, but at the same time not using the best section of donor doesn't seem like the thing to do. In fact the biggest reason I'm still OK with people choosing FUT is because it takes the grafts with the best chance of long term survival. Why skip those grafts?

 

[Shadman]

15 hours ago, Al - Moderator said:

If you want to start off with FUE then I think you should just focus on the FUE. If you leave an area for possible FUT later then you're leaving out the best grafts with the most DHT resistance. I don't think that's the best idea. I'm saying this as someone who is still a fan of FUT in some cases, but at the same time not using the best section of donor doesn't seem like the thing to do. In fact the biggest reason I'm still OK with people choosing FUT is because it takes the grafts with the best chance of long term survival. Why skip those grafts?

 

^ completely agree, I also think that if you start off with fue you should entirely focus on it