FUE or “Follicular Unit Extraction” is an advanced, minimally-invasive hair transplant method that allows for the harvesting of individual follicles (hair units) from the donor area without a scalpel or stitches, and therefore leaves no linear scar. This is important to everybody but especially to those who like to wear their hair short.
FUE is a modern surgical hair transplant technique used to treat male pattern baldness. This technology physically replaces lost hair with a patient’s own fuzz from donor areas on the back and/or sides of the scalp (or other donor sites) as opposed to using Rogaine or Propecia to treat baldness. Hair follicles are “harvested” from the donor areas in one of two ways—follicular unit extraction (FUE) or strip harvesting. FUE uses a small, 1mm dermal punch to pluck small tufts of hairs directly from the scalp. Strip harvesting relies on cutting out a strip of scalp (ouch) and manually excising the follicles from the flesh using a microscope. These follicles are then carefully grafted onto the bald patch, known as the recipient area. The grafts will begin to grow on their own within three to four months. Full growth is expected at 1 year after transplant and will normally continue to do so for the rest of the patient’s life.
To use the ARTAS (or Neograft), the patient first has their hair shortened to about 1mm in length. The patient then sits in the chair with the ARTAS positioned above him. A physician then uses the robotic arm to make a series of small dermal punches to harvest the follicles—collecting up to 1,000 hairs an hour. These follicles are then manually transplanted into the recipient area. The entire process generally takes a single session lasting up to eight hours.