8402 FUT Grafts

This patient from Spain originally met Dr. Hasson on one of his annual trips to Europe where he meets patients to determine their candidacy for hair transplant surgery. This patient had exceptional donor area characteristics – above average density, laxity, and hair texture. This coupled with his stage 6 hair loss pattern made him a very good candidate. We have performed hair restoration surgeries on a number of Spanish patients over the years and have found that patients from this region tend to have higher densities than the average patient. With these factors in place, he was pretty well guaranteed an exceptional result if indeed he was to choose Dr. Hasson as his hair transplant surgeon. The expectation for this patient, given these circumstances, would be for a result that would be considered a “home run” or in simple terms produce a very significant cosmetic benefit. In fact, this result could arguably be the best single session hair transplant ever. Many prospective patients point to this result as something they would like to achieve. We do often caution patients that this result is not attainable for everyone. But it does illustrate what is possible with the right donor hair, surgeon, and team.

One of the remarkable aspects of this hair transplant result is the high density carried out over a large area. In most cases the density achieved by hair transplant surgery in the frontal area and hairline is considerably higher than the density in the mid scalp and crown. With this many grafts to work with, Dr. Hasson was able to maintain above average density into the mid scalp and crown not commonly seen in a hair restoration surgery. You will be hard pressed to find many if any other clinics exceeding 6000 grafts in one session let alone over 8,400. Most doctors and clinics struggle to harvest 3-4000 grafts in one session. What this means for the patient is that he would have likely needed 3 surgeries to come close to this result at virtually every other clinic. One hair transplant surgery is considerably more desirable than multiple surgeries for many reasons. It is more cost effective, the patient gets the desired result in 8-12 months rather than 3 years or more and there is less scarring which, in turn, translates to better preservation of donor hair.

At the time of his hair transplant surgery, the patient was taking Finasteride. As you would expect this procedure took many hours, just short of 16 to be exact. With TV and movies for the patient to watch, pauses for lunch and dinner and other numerous breaks, what seems like a long time to be undergoing a hair restoration surgery is actual a fairly easy day for the patient. Although it was a long day, as you would expect for a large hair transplant surgery consisting of over 8400 grafts, the procedure went well with no complications. Of the 8402 grafts, 2556 were single hair grafts, 4982 were doubles and 464 were 3-4 hair grafts. The size of the strip varied in width from 2 centimeters in some places up to 3 cm in others and was 35 cm in length. We were fortunate enough to see the patient the following year back in Spain on Dr. Hasson’s subsequent visit.  These photos were taken in Madrid 1 year post-op from his hair transplant surgery.