Follicular Unit Transplantation

Introduction

Follicular unit transplant is the new standard treatment in hair transplant for restoration of lost or sparse hair. Follicular Unit Transplant (FUT) technique uses hair graft units in their natural groups for hair transplants. Follicular units are a group of one to four terminal hair follicles.

Each follicular unit is a microscopic structure containing terminal hair follicles, sebaceous (oil) glands, a small muscle, tiny nerves and small blood vessels. This follicular unit is covered by a surrounding sheath made up of a protein known as collagen. Thus this unit is hair bearing structure of the skin and needs to be kept intact to insure maximum growth. The follicular unit is seen on the surface of scalp as a tiny clump of hair growing together.

This follicular unit is also a physiologic unit, along with being an anatomical one. For normal function and natural look of each hair follicle unit depends on preservation of other important structures in the unit. This is the basis for modern hair transplant. Natural and undetectable results are expected with every hair transplant surgery.

The natural growth of hair occurs on the scalp as tiny bundles called as follicular units. This fact has been recognized by histologists for some time, but the existence of follicular units was practically ignored by surgeons who perform hair restoration surgery.

In areas of the scalp harbouring genetic balding, the healthy terminal hair are gradually replaced by hair of smaller diameter and length. These are known as miniaturized hair.

The natural results of Follicular Hair Transplant

Follicular hair transplant is nowadays the standard hair transplant procedure. One reason for this is its natural look and functionality. The surgeon has more control over the direction of the follicular grafts. In this procedure, the Hair transplant surgeon places follicular units in their exact natural direction and distribution.

Previous techniques such as micro-graft, mini-graft or plugs provide very little control on the distribution and direction of each follicular unit. The final direction of units after the transplant depends on their original location in the donor area.

Exclusive FUT

1. The follicular hair transplant needs both the surgeon and surgical assistants with proper training, skills and experience. It is not available everywhere. Even n hands of skilled personnel, the follicular unit hair transplants are tedious and time consuming.

2. With the introduction of the stereoscopic microscope and using it in harvesting hair grafts has improved the results of grafting substantially. The increased magnification provided by microscopes has improved the quality of the grafts and also maximized the growth of intact healthy hair.

3. A standard follicular unit hair transplant surgery generally takes about 4 to 8 hours depending on the number of grafts and extent of areas of balding which needs coverage.

4. As a result of small size of the hair grafts, there is very little or no scarring of the scalp tissue.

5. One more advantage of this surgery is a more luxurious growth of hair as the functional hair unit is not disturbed. Adequate density and even distribution of the hair grafts is obtained as the units are placed very close to each other.

6. An important feature of follicular unit transplant is a natural looking hairline. It is a big advantage of this procedure as compared to mini or micro-grafting surgery.

Difference between Follicular Unit Transplantation and Mini-micrografting:

This issue is very important for a bald person who needs to decide which hair restoration procedure is more suitable for him or her. In Follicular Unit Transplantation, sizes of the graft are determined by natural selection. However, in the mini-micrografting processes the graft sizes are randomly determined by the doctor and the donor tissues are cut into the pieces as per the choice of surgeon. Therefore, another name for this technique is mini-micrografts cut to size.

The preservation of function of the follicular units is not considered as important in mini or micro grafting. Instead of this, the speed and cost-effectiveness procedure are given more weightage. The wounds at the donor sites tend to be larger in mini-micrografts.