By Christine Haran
In the early days of hair transplantation, the surgery usually failed cosmetically, undermining the very reason patients sought it out: to improve their appearance. Balding patients were left with scars and unattractive hair "plugs," or bundles of 10 to 25 hairs with large gaps of bald skin between them. The problem was that hair transplantation was performed using a 4 mm punch. Hair in the center of these large grafts tended not to grow because of the lack of oxygen. And even careful surgeons could not help cutting some of the hair follicles, which were then incapable of growth.
As a reaction to the poor cosmetic results produced by plugs, hair transplant surgeons began using smaller grafts. These were obtained from tissue removed in strips from the donor area in the back of the scalp. The harvesting was accomplished using surgical scalpels rather than the punch. By the early 1990s, doctors had completely abandoned the punch in favor of the knife.
The next major breakthrough came with the introduction of Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) in 1995. In this procedure, the entire hair restoration is carried out using the naturally occurring follicular units of the patient's scalp, which each usually contain between one and four hairs. The donor tissue is obtained via single, rather than multiple, strips from the back of the scalp, and the individual follicular units are then dissected from this strip.
Copyright 2009 NBC Health
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