Hair Loss Issue in Gurgaon and its Treatment with FUE Hair Transplant

Author: Deepesh Saxena

Hair loss is a tremendously common condition among men and women these days. Approximately about half of the men are likely to experience hair fall by the time they reach the age of 50 years. Principally, hair loss is not a life-threatening condition; however, it can cause potential psychological trauma to the patient.

Causes of hair loss

The most common cause of hair loss is genetic makeup of the person, that is, it runs in family of the individual. Hair loss can also occur due to other disorders such as thyroid disease, anaemia, anorexia, and fungal infection of the scalp; however, this type of hair loss is reversible and can be cured with treating the respective disorder which is causing the hair loss. Furthermore, some medications like chemotherapy for malignant tumours can also cause temporary hair fall. Although, hair loss caused because of other disorders can be cured, however, genetic hair loss cannot be cured with medications and only resort for the restoration of hairs lost due to genetic hair loss is hair transplant.

What is a hair transplant?

Hair transplant is a cosmetic and aesthetic surgery predominantly performed by a plastic surgeon or hair transplant surgeon. In this procedure, hair follicles from the area with rich hairs are transplanted surgically to the area of baldness. The hairs after transplantation grow naturally without any issue and require minimal management after the transplant. In recent decades, newer techniques and advent in technologies has played an important role in popularising the hair transplant procedure. Nowadays, experienced and skilled surgeons guarantees scar less and painless hair transplant using these newer technologies.

Techniques for hair transplant

In hair transplant, the surgeon transplants hairs from area with rich hair density to area with thinning, fewer hairs or area of baldness. The area from which hairs are extracted is called donor area and the area where hairs are transplanted is called a recipient site. There are two commonly used techniques for harvesting of hair follicles from the donor area, Follicular unit transplant (FUT) and Follicular Unit extraction (FUE). In this article, we are going to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of FUE hair transplant procedure and the cost of FUE hair transplant procedure.

FUE Hair Transplant

The FUE hair transplant procedure has gained wide popularity from the last few years. FUE procedure, unlike FUT hair transplant procedure is a suture less technique. In FUE hair transplant procedure, the surgeons employ extraction of intact follicular units from the donor area using a micro motor. Because the follicular unit is narrowest at the surface, one need to use small micropunches of size 0.6–0.8 mm and therefore the resulting scar is too small to be recognised. This procedure is beneficial for those patients who are interested in wearing short hairs and thus, cannot have a liner scar at the donor area. Furthermore, for hair transplant from body hairs or beard, FUE technique is more preferred.

Advantages of FUE hair transplant

  1. Patient can wear short hairs as no visible scar is present.
  2. Less surgical trauma at the donor site because no incision is given at the donor area.
  3. Reduced post-operative healing time.
  4. Can be used in combination with FUT procedure to utilise the donor area efficiently.

Disadvantages of FUE hair transplant

  • Limited donor supply: The main drawback of FUE procedure is limited availability of donor hair follicles because overharvesting from donor site can cause serious complications and failure of hair transplant.
  • High transection rate: One of the most common drawback of FUE procedure is high transection rate of the hair follicles. In FUE, the surgeon is unable to estimate the angle of the hair follicle under the scalp to the emerging direction of hair follicle. Thus, it is a totally blind procedure and subsequently, there is augmented follicular transection rate (FTR). As compared to FUT method whose transection rate is quite low (approx. 2%), the transection rate in FUE is considerably elevated.
  • Trimming of donor area: For FUE hair transplant procedure, the donor area needs to be trimmed which can be unpleasant for some. Trimming of hairs at donor area is not required in FUE.

Cost of FUE hair transplant

Generally, the hair transplant centres charge the patient on the basis of per graft. The average per graft cost of FUE hair graft in India ranges from INR 40-60. In other countries, such as USA, UK and Australia, the FUE hair graft cost ranges from $10 to $15, which is quite expensive as compared to the cost of FUE in India.

Conclusion:

Thus, it is our high recommendation for patients to carefully research both the hair transplant techniques and it should be discussed with the hair transplant surgeon whether which technique is best suited for themselves.