Hair transplant techniques, FUE technique, FUT or Strip technique

FUT or Strip technique

Currently more widespread and proposed, in HairClinic it has not been performed for 12 years now due to its high invasiveness.

The first hair transplantation techniques were nicknamed "islands" and date back to before the 1980s. The techniques involved the extraction and transplantation of real hair islands, creating an effect known as the "doll effect". Subsequently, the autotransplantation techniques in those years began a slow evolution, giving life to the "strip" technique.

The Italian translation of “strip” is strip, in fact removing a flap of the scalp and subsequently isolating the hair to be transplanted are the prerogatives of the FUSS technique (better known as Strip). Widespread technique but not recommended by us and not adopted, too traumatic for the follicles and very invasive for the patient. The strip of skin taken is 10/20 cm long and 1/2 cm high, the post surgery is challenging and painful, with scarring often unsightly. It also requires an excessive "sacrifice" of the donor area, many follicles are damaged during the removal, in the clipping to isolate the follicles, and in the scalp suture. The final aesthetic results are mediocre and unsatisfactory.

Many patients realized only after a few months or a few years of a further unsightly effect: the more baldness advanced over the years, the more evident was the grafted hair because they were very distant from each other, making the result totally unnatural. To stem this unsightly effect, the leading specialists in the sector have concentrated on trying to cure the natural evolution of baldness and increase the chances of engraftment of the grafted follicles.

This is how pre and post surgery care has become increasingly important, aimed at creating ideal conditions for performing the transplant surgery and maintaining the aesthetic effect for the longest time.

FUE technique.

He changed the rules of autotransplantation by opening a new frontier in micro-surgery for baldness. There are several variants and they differ from each other by the implant used.

The manual extraction, one by one, of the follicles to be transplanted, is the main feature of the FUE monobulbar autotransplantation, (FUE Classic, FUE No Trim Hair or Direct Hair No Touch, FUE SLC, and Trillix). Without pain, without stitches, without obvious scars like the Strip, are the peculiarities of FUE.

In a first phase, the various grafts (follicular units) are removed one at a time using a special cylindrical and hollow scalpel (punch). In a second phase, the follicles are transplanted directly into the part to be thickened, thanks to a tool called "implanter". The size of the implant also determines the degree of density of the thickening: the thinner the instrument, the more it is possible to graft follicles close to each other. The size of the punch used for the withdrawal also establishes the objective difficulty of the procedure.

This translates into two choices: the first is the use of large implanters such as the more antiquated Trilix, which leaves evident punctate scars in the donor area and for the same reason does not allow to create an extremely natural density because it is almost impossible to obtain a adequate proximity between the grafts. Or the second choice is to use a very thin instrument but with the risk of damaging many follicles during the extractions. Another point to take into consideration in traditional FUE techniques is the time required to perform an autotransplant, time conditions the amount of hair to be transplanted per single session. Furthermore, some damage that grafts can inevitably suffer if extracted incorrectly should also be considered.

The manual technique that contains the maximum aesthetic and safety expression is given by aFUE, a semi-automated technique that uses a motorized punch in the follicle removal phase and a very thin implater in the grafting phase, this translates into maximum respect for the donor area and maximum density feasible on the patient in the recipient area.

To perform this technique it is necessary to have a very high manual skill and many years of experience in micro-surgery for baldness. In HairClinic the surgeons who perform it deal only with this sector and no other are international Top Surgeons and among the first in the world to perform this technique. We perform the aFUE technique, an evolution of the classic FUE technique, the differences between aFUE and FUE are understood in the use of the motorized extraction punch and in the implant for the thinner grafts. These peculiarities make AFUE a safe and highly valid technique.