ISHRS conference

[arfy]

Hi Pat

I was wondering if you went to the IHRS conference this month, and if there were any interesting developments? Was it just the same old stuff, or was there anything new and exciting?

 

I know Jerry Cooley had a seminar on future treatments, I wonder if that was just a recap of the recent happenings, or if there was anything new that came to light. Also, I believe NHI was going to present some data on their FUE (single graft extraction) process. Was there any details to report? Also, did Dr. Woods ever get mentioned in any of the forums etc, or is he still "under the radar" in the ISHRS?

 

I know that I and other readers would appreciate a first-hand report. Thanks!

[arfy]

Hi Pat

I was wondering if you went to the IHRS conference this month, and if there were any interesting developments? Was it just the same old stuff, or was there anything new and exciting?

 

I know Jerry Cooley had a seminar on future treatments, I wonder if that was just a recap of the recent happenings, or if there was anything new that came to light. Also, I believe NHI was going to present some data on their FUE (single graft extraction) process. Was there any details to report? Also, did Dr. Woods ever get mentioned in any of the forums etc, or is he still "under the radar" in the ISHRS?

 

I know that I and other readers would appreciate a first-hand report. Thanks!

[Pat - Community Publisher]

Arfy,

 

Yes I did attend the conference in Puerto Vallarta. And I will be writing a full report for the readers of this site soon.

 

But as a sneak preview - the big new is that Dr. Bernstein of NYC won the Platinum Follicle Award and Dr. Seager of Toronto won the Golden Follicle Award. So a BIG congradulations to both of them!

 

In many ways they and all the others who championed follicular unit hair transplantation - had already won by making this excellent procedure the "Gold Standard" for hair transplantation. I think the award recognize this.

 

Dr. Seager will also soon be joining this Network and adding excellent examples of his work to the photo galleries.

 

Unfortunately, there were a fair amount of cancelations and many presentations were not made, including Dr. Cooleys on future hair loss treatments, and Dr. Rassmans on Follicular Unit Extraction FUE. I had been anticpating these talks as well.

 

Dr. Woods, although invited to attend over the past two years, once again did not attend and share his research. A few of the well know Australian doctors shared their first hand experience with Dr. Woods and his patients and I have encouraged them to post their insights on this forum.

 

I hope to provide more details soon.

 

Hasta Luego - Pat

 

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[Guest]

Arfyman,

 

Remember your heated discussion a few weeks ago about the FUE technique by NHI? And remember NHI's response to you. I just read it again. My bet is that the Australian doctors at ISHRS in Puerto Vallerta said that Woods got good results in some cases but barely anything in others. That seems to be the argument being made against Woods: that a patient is going for an all or nothing deal. It makes it sound like quite a risk. To your average patient who's scared about their donor supply, the thought of it being completely wasted is very scary. Thoughts?

 

Yankee

[arfy]

I have a feeling that the transplant industry is going to try it's best to sweep Dr. Woods (and FUE) under the rug, by saying the technique can't be performed effectively, etc. If you hear them say that, "consider the source".

 

The hair transplant industry does not want to change, they are happy to coast along with things the way they are. Case in point, the majority of doctors are NOT using "all-FU" transplants, even though they are the most natural looking. FU transplants are more time-consuming to perform, so doctors make more money using minigrafts. Not only do FUs look more natural, they actually give better density than minigrafts (exactly the opposite of what the minigraft docs say, when they try to "knock" FUs). Dr. Bernstein and Rassman prove this mathematically, in the article "The Logic of Follicular Unit Transplantation" which anyone can read in the Research Library section here. The reason that more doctors don't use all FUs is they don't want to learn any new techniques, and they want to keep turnover high with fast procedures. Patient satisfaction is not at the top of most transplant doctors' priorities, if the patient is reasonably happy when he leaves the surgical chair, the doctor is satisfied. There is no need, in their minds, to try to improve something they consider "good enough".

 

So I am going to guess that an even newer technique, like Dr. Woods (and NHI's version called FUE) that is even more time-consuming than FU strip excisions are, is not going to be very popular. I bet the industry will try to ignore the technique (they've already been doing that for years), they will also try to discredit it.

 

The only big question in my mind is will NHI also be trying to discredit this "stripless" single graft harvesting as well? After all, if they announce to the world that their experiments were a huge failure, that could effectively kill the chances of that technique ever becoming widespread in the US. They may decide it is in their own best interests to try to nip that technique in the bud. After all, very few transplant doctors are in this field to "help people", most are in it because there are no HMOs to deal with, the money is good, and the techniques are not that complicated as most doctors practice them. Not every transplant doctor, but a majority of them, in my opinion. That's why the handfull of ethical doctors like Bernstein and Shapiro (and others I am sure) are worth their weight in gold.

 

There is no doubt that a less-invasive transplant (like Woods performs) would be a huge improvement for the patients. I am constantly reading reports from guys who have terrible scarring in their donor site, and this could finally be an end to all of that. But my guess is that even though it is an improvement for the patients, the doctors in the industry won't go for it.

[Guest]

I want to know what happened at the conference. Can we get an idea of when we'll find out?

[Pat - Community Publisher]

Yankee,

 

Welcome to the group. And thanks for your post.

 

I?‚??m swamped with work on the site right now and emails. But I will try to put together more info on the conference. In short it was not particularly eventful, especially when you have been to a few. Change is incremental and since the introduction of all microscopic follicular unit work their really has not been any dramatic new developments. Mostly just continued refinements and more surgeons doing better work. Dr. Woods was discussed briefly.

 

I will be emailing a couple of respected Australian surgeons who know a good deal about Dr. Woods and his procedure to share their insights here.

 

All for now - Pat

 

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[arfy]

I saw the schedule at www.ISHRS.org (I don't know if it is still up over there) and the only things that jumped out at me when I skimmed over the schedule were the FUE presentation and the seminar by Cooley. (Pat said both were cancelled.) So I will guess it was a lot of the same old thing, unfortunately.

[arfy]

Hi Pat

I'd still be interested in reading your comments about the recent ISHRS conference.

 

Also, I was wondering if you know why Dr. Rassman did not make a presentation on FUE as planned.

 

Thank you.

[Guest AP]

Arfy,

 

I think NHI is or was having trouble getting enough patients for FUE. Probably not enough clinical evidence yet or the evidence doesn't bode well and they need to go back to the drawing board to an extent. I'm sure they would be interested to know how Woods does what he allegedly does. That's my guess.

 

I base it only on the fact I had a consult at NHI in late summer and they told me I was not a candidate for FUE but said they would require me to take the scalp biopsy "FOX" test for $150 if I wanted to have surgery--that's the test that determines if you are a FUE candidate! How many people would pay $150 for something of absolutely no use to them? Odd, don't you think? I thought so. It signaled to me that things were not going as planned.

 

-AP

[Pat - Community Publisher]

Arfy,

 

I?‚??ve been waiting for photos from the ISHRS photographer to add to my coverage. But if I don?‚??t get them soon I?‚??ll go without them.

 

As posted earlier their was not any ground breaking events or presentations that I saw. If a person was a first time visitor they would find the meetings interesting. But for those that have attended many of them their was not a lot of new information.

 

More to follow.

 

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