The Pros and Cons of Follicular Unit Extraction

FUE is a relatively new procedure, and is certainly one of the most non-invasive methods of hair transplantation. With the use of accurate tools, a doctor will punch tiny holes in your donor area, and harvest individual hair follicles. Minute slits will be created in the area that has most balding, and these follicles will then be carefully placed in those slits. This method has proven effective and also leads to lesser scarring as opposed to strip removal or follicular unit transplant techniques. This means, that people who have opted for FUE will have the option of wearing their hair, really short, should they want.

Here are some of the other benefits of opting for follicular unit extraction:

Since this is a less invasive procedure, there are lesser chances of infections or post-surgical complications.
• There are no sutures, cuts or knicks, which means that the healing and recovery is much faster.

• Only the required number of hair follicles are harvested, which means that the donor area is not 'troubled' too much.

• Even though the scars are minimal, there are bound to be a few, but these are placed in such a manner that they are very easy to cover. Most of the times, people will not even be able to figure out that such a procedure was ever conducted.

• Most of the times, post procedure, people are able to go back to their normal routines, including exercise and indulging in sports quite early as compared to strip surgery.

• With the help of FUE, it has become possible to take grafts from areas other than the scalp like rest of the body, beard, chest etc. Also FUE is the best technique suited for eyelash, beard and moustache transplants where smaller number of grafts is required.

Like is the case with all things in life, there are a few disadvantages associated with FUE as well and these are as follows:

• The follicles that are being harvested can be easily subjected to damage, from the time of harvesting to being transplanted. This means that the harvested follicles could very well go to waste, if not handled properly.

• Before a follicle can be harvested, the entire area has to be shaved off. This is often a cause of concern for several people.

•This is certainly a less efficient method as compared to FUT - this is so because when a larger area is being covered, harvesting individual follicles becomes cumbersome.

• Follicle transection rate:In FUE procedure, the extraction is done in more or less a blind way, so some of the follicles can get transected or cut. This leads to wastage of the precious donor grafts. So the surgeon should be extremely skilled to reduce this transection rate. At AK Clinics, after many years of research, our doctors have discovered techniques to keep this follicular transection rate to the lowest possible numbers at par with the world's best hair transplant surgeons.

• The procedure tend to take longer time as the grafts are extracted individually. But the speed is mainly surgeon-dependent and experienced FUE surgeons can take out the same number of grafts or even more within the same time period as strip surgery

• As this is a more precise technique and requires special equipments, it is more expensive. Also the skill and effort to be put in by the surgeon is more. The cost also goes up because more technicians and nurses are required to assist the doctor.

Ideally, FUE is the best solution for people who have mild to moderate bald areas requiring lesser number of grafts.