To find out more about the new revolutionary method of hair transplantation, you can read an excerpt from my interview with NBC and MSNBC which aired in February 1999.
New
Techniques to Fight Baldness
New York-February 3, 1999
Millions of American men have resigned to their genetic fates - baldness, some have tried hairpieces, others have tried special surgeries to transplant bundles of donated hair, but the cosmetic results have been mixed at best. Now, dermatologists are using a newer method of covering those gleaming pates. The method is called follicular transplantation. After trying many other methods unsuccessfully, one balding man decided to give this new procedure a try. "I'd like this procedure to make me look like I had a full head of hair like when I was 25 years old", he said.
This new technique has been developed over the last few years and is based on the fact that hair emerges from the scalp in naturally occurring groups called "follicular units", which are made up of one to four terminal hairs and the surrounding connective tissue. In the past these hairs were divided and transplanted, but now the whole bundle is extracted from one part of the scalp, treated in the laboratory, then transplanted in another area.
"If these units are kept intact, think of them as bunches of corn coming out of the earth. If these corn stalks are kept intact, and not divided into individual corn, the hair is very natural looking," said Dr. Daniel Buchen of Mt. Sinai Hospital.
Aside from improving the aesthetic result of the transplant, physicians and patients are both excited because it also increases the viability - how long the hair will actually survive.
"In particular, with the use of stereomicroscope, we have in fact approached 100% survival," said Dr. Buchen. With such survival rates, it's like removing hair from the most plentiful part of the scalp to the balding area and almost all hair are surviving. Much better than previous methods, which only offered 50%-60% survival rates for the graft.
This new techniques offers many advantages over the micrografting procedure. A fuller graft is achieved since the grafts are the same size as seen in nature, growth is more consistent, and the results are always natural.
