Is there any good hair transplant treatment in Australia?

FUE, FUT, DHI, DFI, Stem Cells — the sheer abundance of hair transplant techniques is quite overwhelming to absorb. How can you determine which one is right for you?

Let’s start with first principles. Permanent Hair Loss cannot be reversed without medical help, for which hair transplant is the only permanent solution. The basic principle of hair transplant is to take the healthy, donor follicles from areas of the scalp that aren’t affected by baldness, and redistribute them surgically. Therefore, for a hair transplant to work, there needs to be hair covering the donor areas of the scalp to harvest the healthy follicles.

Here are the differences between various techniques.

• FUT: Highly surgical process where a strip of skin is cut from the back of head resulting in a long scar. Archaic technique still prevalent in Western Australia (in fact in entire Australia) as it minimizes surgery time for a surgeon given most part is outsourced to Assistants/ Technicians. Implantation is done by first creating slits in the treatment area and placing the grafts into them with forceps, allowing little control over angle, direction and depth.

• FUE: Primarily an extraction technique where a punch is used to make small, circular incisions in the skin around grafts, using a motorized extractor, removing them one-by-one from the scalp. The holes heal throughout the donor area and are undetectable. Implantation process same as FUT. Technicians continue to play a key role in the entire surgery.

• DHI: Extraction process similar to FUE except that DHI uses manual punches (old technique leading to low harvesting and graft survivability). Grafts are implanted using a Choi implanter (whosoever claims they have patents over the implanter device is saying a lie!), for greater control on depth, direction and angle of placement.

• DFI: Most advanced technique taking the best of FUE and DHI, perfected by evolutionary protocols. Extraction method is based on FUE technique (using the most advanced motorized tool), the preservation method is inspired from best practices used in organ transplants and the implantation method leverages the DHI technique. Entire procedure is performed by a surgeon. No technicians operate on your scalp.

• Stem Cells Hair Transplant: Like a traditional hair transplant, a stem cell hair transplant involves harvesting substances and implanting them onto the area where you want regrowth to occur. However, instead of hairs, skin samples are harvested and implanted on your scalp to stimulate growth. This method of hair transplant is being experimented and is not a proven treatment.

So when you next visit a hair transplant clinic, make sure you ask which technique and get into the nuts and bolts of it!