Follicular unit transplants (FUT) are surgical procedures that move healthy follicles to areas that are balding. This usually involves moving hair from the back of the head to the front or the crown of the head. FUT micrografts are surgical procedures that transplant very small groupings of follicles.
Patients undergoing the procedure will be placed under a general anaesthetic. The procedure lasts around four hours and is considered to be nearly painless.
At the beginning of the procedure, a thin strip of hair is removed from the top of the neck. The removal of this strip leaves a very small scar of approximately 1 millimetre in diameter. The scar will be covered by the patient’s hair and will not be visible.
The harvested strip is divided into sections using a microscope and a small surgical knife. After the strip is divided into single rows or follicles, it is divided again into groupings of 1-4 hairs. These tiny grafts are separated according to the number of hairs they contain. They are stored in a chilled saline solution until insertion.
The grafts are inserted into the scalp using small incisions created by a micro lancet. The incisions are specifically created to match the natural growth patterns of the patient’s hair. Each recipient site receives 1-4 hair grafts depending on the area of the scalp where it is located.
The surgeon will manually implant each graft into the scalp, which ensures proper placement. Grafts will begin to bond with the new skin almost immediately. Within a single day, patients are able to touch the grafts without fear of shifting or removing them. Patients do not require bandages and are able to resume normal life within a day or two of receiving the procedure.
The transplanted hair begins to grow just days after the surgery. Many patients will notice that some hairs fall out around a week to 10 days following the procedure. This is common and does not indicate a failed procedure. The cell that stimulates hair growth will remain in the scalp even if the physical hair has fallen out. Patients should see normal hair growth within two or three months of the surgery.
One of the largest benefits of FUT micrografts is the density of the hair transplant. The precision with which the grafts are divided ensures that the largest number of hairs are transplanted to the balding areas. Excess tissue and fat are removed from the grafts before insertion. This allows the hairs to be placed closer together than other forms of hair transplant procedures. Hairs that are placed closer together appear thicker and more natural, which is the ultimate goal of hair transplant procedures.
Another benefit of this procedure is the precision with which the hairs are placed into the scalp. The hair transplant surgeon manually place the grafts into the patient’s scalp in patterns that mimic the natural growth of hair. The benefit of this type of placement is that patients avoid the appearance of hair that is growing in unnatural rows, which is sometimes the resulting appearance of transplant surgeries.
The use of microscopes also allows for the preservation of the largest number of hair follicles. Imprecise procedures can result in the death of numerous hairs, but FUT micrografts have a success rate of 95%-98% of transplanted hairs. This means patients will receive a thicker, fuller head of hair than with most other transplant procedures.