Eyebrow restoration in male with no eyebrow hairs; Dr. Beehner

[Dr. Michael Beehner]

This 40 y/o male, who has never had eyebrow hairs, presented in 2005 for eyebrow hair restoration. We placed 165 1-hair grafts into each eyebrow at his first session, and another 145 into each eyebrow at a second session 2 years later in 2007. In January of 2009 he had an additional 115 placed in each side, and he now presents 9 months later. Photos are shown of his result after two procedures in January and also his most recent photos.

I like to use all 1-hair micrografts in doing eyebrow transplants, which allows me to use a very small 22g needle to make the recipient sites, and we leave the donorhairs long (around 1/2 inch long), so that we can see the bend that exists in almost all hairs, so that we can rotate the graft so the curve of the hair flows with the direction of the eyebrow itself.

Mike Beehner, M.D.

[Dr. Alan Feller]

Excellent result.

[Severn]

Great results for sure. Will the eyebrow hair continue to grow like scalp hair unless trimmed or will it take on the characteristics of the eyebrow area (as for as hair length)

[Dr. Michael Beehner]

In answer to your question, scalp donor hair, when transplanted to the eyebrows does seem to behave like scalp hair and most of my eyebrow patients report having to trim their eyebrow hairs every 1-2 weeks to keep them at the proper length. There have been a handful of studies by Dr. Hwang of South Korea and Dr. Cole that they claim showed that hair transplanted elsewhere took on some of the properties of the site it landed in. I myself haven't studied that in a scientific way up till now, but my clinical impressions over the years of having transplanted beard hair, chest hair, and scalp hair to eyebrows is that I haven't noted this modification of the hair's behavior (growth rate, character of the hair, etc). This is an area, especially regarding eyebrow hairs, that needs a definitive study on rate of growth.

Mike Beehner, M.D.