China Meeting 2017

The CAHRS held its 2^nd annual meeting in Hongzhou China last month with over 300 doctors in attendance. It was especially nice for us foreign doctors as they had simultaneous translations Mandarin to English. My special interest was in the live surgery workshop featuring high speed FUE extraction. I really wanted to examine the graft quality extracted using a sharp punch at high speed.

There were 3 live surgery demonstrations all using FUE. Dr Devroye and myself demonstrated 1600 FUE grafts to reconstruct frontal hairline and infill on a young man. We used Devroye’s WAW system for the extractions. As usual the graft quality was excellent and the transections rates very low (1%). The trumpet flat punch design is especially good for Asian hair as it can penetrate deeper than a sharp punch without transection thus making the extraction easier. The recipient sites were cut at 40/cm2 using customs blades and lateral slits. Graft placement was done using Wong’s prototype insertor. The hair shaft alignment of the grafted hair was spot on and we anticipate very natural growth. 40/cm2 using coarse dark Asian hair should give great coverage and density.

In the second OR we saw FUE using a sharp punch. The graft quality was very good with a transection rate of 10 to 15%. These are certainly higher than the flat trumpet punch but still very good for sharp punch. A lot of surgeons claim transection rates of 3 to 4 % using a sharp punch but when seen in real live none of the claims are true and they are well above the 10 to 15% observed here. All the grafts were trimmed before placing. Insertion was done using needle holes, placement using forceps holding the upper portion of the grafts. This requires a larger needle (blade) so dense packing will be more difficult.

Speed is seductive and most of the young doctors were attracted to high speed FUE extractions. The message that we try to emphasize is that quality must come first and that every donor hair is non replaceable and precious. Most patients do not have a surplus of donor hair and that speed is dangerous without quality.

The other highlight of the trip was spending time together with my assistants Carmen, Winnie, Dr Jean Devroye and his assistant Marie. We spend 2 days touring Yellow Mountain and saw the most amazing sunrise near the mountaintop. It was a very spiritual moment, one that I will not soon forget. Even the bus ride was fun discussing technical aspects and ideas concerning current and future idea on improving FUE.

I want to thank Dr Jufang the chair person of this meeting and the organizing committee for 1) the invitation to this workshop and 2) looking after each and every detail of this China trip, the hospitality was amazing.

Korean Meeting 2017

KSHRS was held a few days after the China meeting so that we were able to attend both. Like to thank Dr. Jae Park and the executive committee for the kind invitation to attend.

In 2012 I attended the KSHRS meeting for the first time and the things that I remember the most was just how nice the doctor’s offices were and their skill with the implanters.

For a live surgery workshop the KSHRS has the best format. Soul has a high concentration of hair transplants/cosmetic surgery centers all within a fairly short distance of each other. This allows a small group of people in each surgical center so that everyone can fit into the OR at the same time without overcrowding and view the whole operation. It also allows the operating surgeon to work in his/her own environment. The only drawback was we were not able to attend all the surgeries as we had to choose 2 surgeries to observe. We were able to squeeze in an extra surgery by coming a day earlier and watch Jean Devroye demonstrate his WAW system.

As expected the quality of the work was very high. We saw motorized long hair FUE, eyebrow FUT. Prototype punches and motorized chair designed esp. for upright FUE extractions. It is always amazing to see their speed and skill with the sharp implanters. In addition to speed really fine detailed work such as the eyebrows can be done with relative ease as the single hair implanters have improved and gotten much more refined. Other difficult areas such as temple points and facial hairs are so much easier with implanters but the grafts all need to be trimmed perfectly in order to fit into the small needle bore.

Gala dinner with entertainment the first night and Korean barbeque the second night celebrating Korean style (wild). We stayed at the Merriott hotel build on top of one of the most amazing collection of food stalls anywhere. This one stall had these amazing cheese egg tarts that kept calling me back twice a day. So good!

Next year Korea will hold their domestic meeting and should have another international meeting the following year. If you have never been this meeting has it all. I’m going to push my retirement back another few years so that I could attend another Korean meeting.

Jerry Wong

At Hasson and Wong, we refined techniques with custom sized recipient sites ,ultra dense packing , mega sessions and the lateral slit technique . These techniques which collectively began to be referred to as “ultra refined transplanting ” , allowed us to achieve unprecedented results .

In 2004 at the 12th meeting of the ISHRS in Vancouver, H&W presented an unheard-of 25 patients (typically one patient is showcased) at the live patient viewing . All of these patients had surgeries performed by us using our techniques. In The next issue of the Hair Transplant Forum International the review from the editor emeritus of the journal wrote :

The indelible image I will take away I will take away from this meeting is that of the patients of Drs Victor Hasson and Jerry Wong. These were demonstrated at the Live Patient Viewing on Friday afternoon. To say these results were “mind-blowing”, would be an understatement. Please picture a young man with former type 5 baldness with over 5,000 FU’s harvested and planted in A SINGLE SESSION and growing with close to 100% perfection. Not only growing, but planted at up to 80 grafts per square centimetre and giving the appearance of completely normal hair direction and density with no ‘crinkle’ whatsoever and a donor scar of  1-2mm. The rest of us will be a long time catching up with the skills of Jerry and Victor and their wonderful staff of assistants. A word of caution for all of those who were as impressed as I was. Please do not return home, remove a 15×2 cm strip and start planting 5,000 FUs at 80 or even 40 per sq cm. This is something that you and your staff might like to aim toward but for goodness sake, work up to it gradually. It requires a marvel of coordination and expertise to be able to perform such a procedure even if, like me, you have been insertivng grafts for nearly 40 years

Since that meeting we have continued to consistently produce the most impressive results of any kind of hair restoration procedure available anywhere worldwide.

Time And Technology

Time and technology eventually changes everything . We have been closely following developments in the FUE field , purchasing newer equipment as it becomes available and testing it . We maintain a very close relationship with those ethical physicians performing cutting edge work in the FUE  field .
In Europe the work of Dr Jose Lorenzo and Dr Koray Erdogan  has come closest to the quality of work that we like to produce. With their assistance we have trained already experienced technicians in their manual extraction techniques.  For approximately 2 years we have been slowly increasing the number of FUE procedures that we perform .

It has been a smooth, steady and impressive march to have arrived at where we are today. The only small detour was when we purchased the Artas Robot. We quickly discovered we could manually harvest grafts with a much higher rate of success in both quality and efficiency. We were also able to leave the donor area with much less damage than the robot. This significantly increased the ability for the patient to wear his or her hair short without any material signs of a procedure and also increased the percentage of viable grafts that could be harvested from the donor area in subsequent procedures if needed.   In general our results have improved to the level that are indistinguishable from that of our strip surgery !!!

Options

So now we are in a world where we have two different technologies producing equally incredible results .
This now gives our patients the option to choose the procedure which best suits them. It does however produce a new dilemma – what technique and for whom ?

Every individual who is considering a hair restoration procedure needs to be familiar with the advantages of each procedure as they make their decision which best suits their individual needs .

It is far more important however, to choose the best clinic, irrespective of techniques, to assure the best possible results .

Each clinic should approach their procedure as a work of art! If they are proud of their art it should be displayed in ultra high definition in their gallery . Each single hair as it exits the scalp should be individually visible. High definition videos are very helpful. Any galleries with poor lighting or poor resolution are a sure sign that this is not the clinic for you .

Remember -research .. research .. research

FUE VS. FUT- What Are The Differences?

The following Infographic provides a side by side comparison of the two hair transplant procedures.

Meet Dr. Hasson In Italy!

Take advantage of this unique opportunity to meet Dr. Victor Hasson, one of the world’s most respected and experienced hair transplant surgeons. Dr. Hasson will provide you with a free, no-obligation hair loss and hair transplant assessment.

Locations & Dates

Rome, Italy

Roma – presso NH Palazzo Cinquecento (sala conferenze Executive 1)

• 25 marzo 2017 dalle 8.30 alle 16.00
• 26 marzo 2017 dalle 8.30 alle 16.00
• 27 marzo 2017 dalle 8.30 alle 16.00
• 28 marzo 2017 dalle 8.30 alle 16.00

Milan, Italy

Milano – presso NH Hotel President (sala conferenze Monforte)

• 30 marzo 2017 dalle 8.30 alle 16.00
• 31 marzo 2017 dalle 8.30 alle 16.00
• 1° aprile 2017 dalle 8.30 alle 16.00
• 2 aprile 2017 dalle 8.30 alle 16.00

What To Expect

Dr. Hasson will be visiting Italy and performing live hair transplant consultations.Here’s what you can expect!

• An evaluation of the cause of your hair loss, its’ current state and likely progression
• A hair retention strategy
• An assessment of your hair characteristics, including scalp laxity and donor density
• A realistic review of your hair restoration goals
• An estimate of the number of grafts required and available for hair transplant surgery
• A discussion of FUE and FUT extraction methods
• A hair transplant cost estimate

Sessions will be held privately in a hotel conference room and typically last up to 20 minutes. We will set up a camera to take clear photos of your head from 12 distinct angles and may record video so the doctor can refer to your images if you decide to pursue hair transplant surgery. You will be provided with a written assessment & recommendation to take home with you.

We look forward to seeing you in Italy!

Complete The Following Form To Register

The following patient from Norway underwent FUT hair transplant surgery with Dr. Wong in May of 2015. After receiving 5,328 grafts in a single surgery, you can clearly see that this patient’s results are nothing less than incredible. In his own words, this patient describes how his hair loss had an effect on his overall confidence, he talks about his investigative process into hair transplant surgery and ultimately, his decision to proceed with surgery with Dr. Wong.

History From Before The Surgery

This is the story about my suffering from hair loss to finding Hasson & Wong, which saved my confidence, my looks and most of all, my life.
When I first noticed my hair loss and how I felt I today realize that my hair loss must have started when I was 18-19 years of age. Before this, I had such beautiful hair. I guess in the beginning it was alright with a little bit thinning cause my hair was so dense that I would work hard to change it for a new hairstyle.

What I Then Decided To Do

When I noticed that my hair was thinning more than what I desired, I first consulted a local hair transplant clinic 20 years of age ( I felt this was not the right decision due to their result and that my hair loss was not that bad at this point).
Instead I started with special vitamins/minerals for hair loss (Arcon Tissane)- kept on going with this.
Then  at 23-25 of age more hair loss was visible, especially in the temples. I thought it was due to stress so at age 25 I applied acupuncture, zone therapy, massage , homeopathic, vitamins and minerals. The hair loss stopped for 2 years, it felt like my hair was improving.
When I became 27 years of age I felt the temples were receding and the hairline was thinning again. I tried hair treatment which was supposed to be without side effects, meaning herbal treatment at a Norwegian clinic claiming they would stop hair loss and reverse the hair cycle to new growth. So much money , so little effect. What they did was only keeping alive hairs which were not yet dead and made them stronger. The results was minimal effect.

From 27- 30 my hair was slowly thinning all the time. I got more and more frustrated. At 28 years of age I contacted the owners/employers of the most known hair transplantation clinics in Norway, which are based in Oslo. The owner said the clinic could do the hair transplant and they would transplant around 2500-2600 grafts . I felt that was a solution, but I had to undergo at least 2 operations to get there – then everybody would know that I had taken one. I was also skeptical when I saw one of the employees there who had undergone a hair transplant. It did not look like doll hair but it did not look 100% natural either.
When I became 29 years old my hair loss was so bad that I had to wear a cap at daylight all the time. I was enormously stressed at the time so I contacted the Norwegian hair transplant clinic performing herbal treatment again really hoping they could save my hair. That was the a terrible decision. I started the herbal treatment( similar to regenix) This made me practically bald. I got a new job at that time so this was so stressful. Not a million words can express all the destructive feelings related to what happened. I contacted the Norwegian health organization and lawyer was brought in. The clinic wanted to pay me half of the money back, but I considered that as an insult and a confirmation that they knew they screwed up. Their lawyer call me to try to pay me so that I would never talk about the case again(btw their marketing was claiming they had no side effect in respect of the treatments cause it was a natural treatment – After this coincidence they removed the headline «natural treatment without side effects).

Half a year later at age 30 and a half, I was now so frustrated and I went back to the most known hair surgery clinic in the capital of Norway, Oslo. They now said I needed around 3300 grafts but it would take 3 operations ( 3 year until the final result) The advisor also said I also would have to live with a little bald crown on the top.
So at this time I was thinking, whats the deal, you don`t ask somebody to make a surgery if you cannot fix the problem. I had no hope.

But then something came across.

Choice of Hasson and Wong

I knew about Hasson and Wong since 2009, but as most people out there I was skeptical due to all I had experienced and due to all the sales people out there
So many questions came to my mind… can they deliver, are  they reliable, consistent, is it safe and will it look natural?

From all the research about hair transplantation clinics I had done which counts probably 100-300 hours of efficient work I decided to book a free consultation with David Anderson in London summer 2014. Hasson and Wong came up as the most reliable and successful clinic from all the research. I was 30, turning 31 years old. I had so many questions and David gave me realistic feedback to what I could expect. I first believed I could get the perfect hair back, and I realized that there is no such thing as the perfect hair after talking to David. After seeing the final result David might have been a little bit too conservative telling me what I could expect which actually was a wise choice from him.

Due to the conservative expectation I was still feeling sad and depressed due to I didn’t know if the final result would be good. I had a couple of conversations through Skype with David and also many emails back and forth for almost a year before I finally decided to book a hair transplant with Hasson and Wong. I had to ask myself this question:
Was I happy about the situation being 90% bald? Could I live with this mentally and physically?
For me this was very difficult because my hair was my identity and with the hair followed my self confidence. I think this a typical male issue. I was depressed, and at the time without a job so it was the perfect time to do the hairtransplatation. David had even suggested that I shave my head during this time of indecision. I took his advice and I was happier with the shaved head rather than thin hair I still wanted hair that I could style so I decided that its now or never.
So I booked a hair transplant at Dr. Jerry Wong in Vancouver, Canada spring 2015.

Experience I had locally at Hasson and Wong at the clinic

When I arrived the clinic in may 2015 the staff showed me extraordinary service. David had already explained how much I suffered from hair loss. I talked with Dr Wong the day before the surgery. We went through what he was going to do, the expectation, hair loss history and a lot of other questions. I felt a kind of relief I hadn’t felt for over a decade, the time I didn’t suffer from hair loss. I still remember Dr.Wong’s final words under the consultation: ‘You will be fine, you will be just fine!’. Then he drew my hairline and went through questions related to the operation. The staff and Dr Wong gave me the feeling that I was at the right place.

The day of the operation I arrived 06.00 am at the clinic. I was taken care of by some really nice girls before Dr.Wong arrived around half an hour later. The skills of Dr.Wong was remarkable. I remember he just draw the hairline exactly as he did the day before with his hand. Then I got some medication to be sure that I would not get any infection or become stressed. The operation was going on for 15 hours. Some breaks. I felt so happy, it was I beautiful day I remember I felt it was a turning point in my life. 10 years of suffering was over. I had felt so much lack of confidence due to my hair loss and now a new world was opening for me.

How I Felt Throughout The Journey

After the surgery I had to wait for my new hair to grow. I was told to be patient because it really takes at least 3 months before the new hairs would come through. I felt so relieved and happy right after the operation although I knew it would take some time before the hair would grow I was excited.
When I was back in Norway about 2 weeks after the operation I felt happy. I had to be patient but just knowing that it would come out made me curious about how it would look like. Would it be worse or better than expected? Would I become happy? I could also see that a lot of the redness was better and my scalp was looking so much better.

At the 1 month my scalp and the redness looked even better. I now went through shock loss which means the new hair had fallen of my head again. I knew this was the procedure. Although my scalp didn’t look good yet I knew that it was just the beginning.

Month 2 there was less redness, my scalp and head looked better.
Between month 3 and month 4 there was some changes. I started to get some new hairs appearing. I remember I was excited. Would it continue, would it look good in the end was some of my thoughts.

In month 5 the rise of the new hair was on fire. I could see significant changes and my hair density increased rapidly. I started feeling more happy. But at this point, I thought that this was the end of it. Other friends thought all the hairs had come out. It was far from the truth.
Month 6 to 7 the new hair growth continued. I had so much hair now. At this stage I realized I was back to were I was 10 years ago. I was so happy.

The 8 month all the hairs had come out and the result was fantastic. I could not believe that there was more to come. I said to myself 95-99% of the process has probably finished. But I was wrong.

Today I am between month 10 and 11 and I now have a full head of hair which is quite dense. Even more than I expected. I guess advisor David Anderson and Dr Wong did their best to keep the expectation as realistic and conservative as possible. I have to say, they did a fantastic job.
After seeing the hair grow month by month I often felt so full of energy, so happy seeing changes. Every month I have seen denser and denser hair, something which was totally new for me cause I was getting thinner and thinner hair for 12-13 years.
Many mornings when I get out of bed I am still amazed that I have so much hair. And best of all, a such natural beautiful hair.
All the time throughout this journey the advisor/consultatant David Anderson has helped me through the weeks and months. If I ever wondered about something related to the surgery, post surgery, feelings related or treatment David was there following up by e-mails and Skype calls. I have never experienced a so high class of service and a guy so helpful.

Now 10 and a half months after the surgery I feel my life is heading in a new direction. I haven`t felt like this for many years. I don`t have a complex about my hair anymore and I feel great, happy and full of self confidence.

I would like to say thank you to the staff of Hasson and Wong for being taken care of as a special person. You showed me service of first class.
I am so happy I met David Anderson in London summer 2014 and that he was so patient with me. He did a absolutely top job and I think the clients who meet him are lucky. Thank you David, hope to see you in Norway one day.

I will take this opportunity to thank Dr.Wong which I am very grateful to.
Dr. Jerry Wong saved the quality of my life. He took away my depression due to hair loss and made me look like the one I used to be. He made me a new man. I can go on and on here. The most important is that Dr.Wong is a very good human being. He is a first class Doctor of hair restoration.
Now I am often thinking thoughts like how was it possible to achieve such a result.
The choice of Hasson and Wong is no doubt the best decision I have ever made.

Thank you for everything!

Recent Update May 2017

These most recent photos sent in by the patient Thomas are 2 years post-op. So happy and impressed with his result, he wanted to help potential patients in Scandinavia where he feels the options for a quality hair restoration are limited at best. He will be seeing patients and representing Hasson and Wong in Oslo on June 11-12. If you’re able to make it to Oslo and would like to see him, sign up here: https://hassonandwong.com/consultations-in-your-city/  Look for some London dates also in the near future. Thomas also provided a brief video of his results below.