What Is The Cycle Of Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow, Hair Again?

Hair Loss Affecting Both Men And Women

Hair loss affects two out of three men and one in five women according to the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Thanks to the evolution of hair replacement techniques but that doesn’t have to be the end of it. 

Comparing aesthetic improvement, effectiveness, amount of postoperative pain and complications of past and present techniques, in a study in the recent issue of the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery was Stephen C. Adler, MD, and Daniel Rousso, MD. Hair restoration procedures overall just keep getting better according to their results. 

Adler tells to give patients a voice that the main objective of the study was to prove that newer techniques are better than older techniques. He further explains, by the new techniques, it's important because like doctors they can always have an opinion of their work, and surely, they can see that they have improved the hairline, the density, and the scars. 

This was the first time that the patient’s opinion based on an objective evaluation is actually performed and sufficiently proven whereas basically, it is their own subjective opinion. 

For other procedures like facelifts and laser peels, also this type of study is not only important for hair restoration as Adler says. Generating a wave of similar studies in this research as Adler predicts. 

What Do The Patients Have To Say?

To patients who had undergone hair replacement over the last three decades, the researchers sent out 300 surveys. 66 responded with an average age of about 44 of that group. Depending on when the surgery was done: before 1980, 1981-1990, and 1991-1996, the patients were grouped into three segments. 

Definitions of some terms and techniques are in order first. Some hair is needed from a donor site for any hair replacement to occur. Out of luck is a bald person. The science of hair grafting reaches back to the early 1800s according to the authors. Until the next century but the procedures commonly associated with hair replacement didn’t begin in the US. 

Focussing on standard grafts (8-10 hairs per follicle), mini grafts (about 4 hairs per follicle), and micrografts (1-2 hairs per follicle) were Adler and Rousso. Further on they were said to be focussing on the scalp reduction, wherein a piece of the scalp is removed as well as the parts with hair are stretched over it, as flaps in which a section of the hair-bearing scalp comes partially disconnected to replace a bald part, as also strip harvesting where a strip of the scalp is entirely disconnected and then moved to a bald spot or the so-called punch harvesting. As 
Adler describes it, giving a person a doll’s head experience as the punch method is the oldest method wherein pencil eraser-sized plugs are removed and placed where needed. 

An increasingly outdated mode of operation, patients surveyed said that they had fewer complications and the best results with the micrografts and the respondents did not even begin to receive until 1991 when they also said that the results came to be better with mini grafts than standard grafts. 

What Then Are The Effective Procedures? 

As Adler then says, actually for the area behind the hairline, micrografts are going to become the benchmark not only to improve the hairline. 

According to the things they have shown already in the paper, micrografts are going to be used more commonly and effectively. 

The researchers found a significantly lower rate of complications for strip harvesting when comparing the more modern strip method harvesting to the older punch technique. 
There were negligible differences in postoperative conditions or aesthetic results for patients during the last two decades, found among the larger more established types of surgery such as scalp flap and scalp reduction. Over the last two decades, Adler acknowledges that not much has changed in these procedures. 

The Conclusion 

The newer procedures are significantly better as this all goes to suggest as Adler writes. Requiring additional evaluation are these types of procedures when compared as he cautions. A newer method, the paper touched on laser hair transplantation surgery. As Adler opines, really meaning newer is not always better as it’s a matter of looking at new technology critically before accepting it as the standard. 

Adler then says that cloning hair comes to be one of the turning points as it is set to make a lot of candidates out of noncandidates. 
According to Adler, things are looking up though for the present: here come recoveries that are much faster, with lesser pain, lesser bleeding, as well as the lesser risk of scars all combined with thereby an increase of aesthetic result along with a natural appearance. It's hard to beat when you combine those.