Which hair transplant technique is better- FUE or FUT?
For many men, hair loss is unavoidable. In fact, if we live long enough, almost all men will lose hair. To what extent and how fast is dependent on our genes. But women also suffer from hair loss. Some studies have shown as many as 50 % of women will experience some degree of hair loss. Any degree of hair loss will significantly impact women much more than men. Hence, women will more readily use various options, including wigs, to hide hair loss. Unfortunately, there are no easy and or effective treatments for hair loss. That is why you will constantly see many options advertised on social media, scientific papers, TV, etc. Everyone wants a reliable method to reverse hair loss. You will see things ranging from topical medicines, to oral pills, to various lasers, light caps, injections, etc claiming ability to regrow your hair. The reality is most of these treatments are not consistent in results. Some people may get a great result while many others won’t. Probably the most effective means to increase hair at bald or balding areas is hair transplant. This treatment has the highest success, but the major disadvantage is it is a major surgery. Most people are uneasy about getting surgery. The two most popular techniques for hair transplant is the FUT- or follicular unit transplant- and FUE- follicular unit extraction. You may wonder which technique is better. While FUE has received the most visibility, in my opinion, the FUT is definitely the better technique.
Hair transplant is not growing hair where you are bald. Instead, it involves taking hair in the back of your head and sides of your head and then implanting them into bald areas. This is based on the theory of “donor dominance.” What this means is hair programmed to grow throughout your life (which is the back and sides of your head) can be taken and placed in a bald area and continue to grow as if it were still in the back of your head. FUT, which is also commonly known as the “strip” technique, is the more established procedure. FUT involves harvesting a strip of scalp in the back of your head and along your temples. Usually, the strip is about 1 to 1.5 cm tall by length determined by how many grafts you need to transplant to the bald areas. Afterwards, the donor area is closed surgically. FUE, however, involves taking numerous little punches of individual hair grafts along the same distribution as the FUT technique. Thus, at the end of the procedure, FUT has a horizontal long line scar at the back of your head. In contrast, in FUT, there are no incisions to close. Rather, all the tiny little holes are left to heal on their own. The argument for FUE is that you won’t have a long scar on the back of your head, because all the tiny little punch holes are scattered along the scalp. However, I would stress that if you need a substantial number of grafts, at some point, all those little punch holes also become visible as a different kind of scar. Especially if you wear your hair short, those tiny holes can be just as disfiguring as a long horizontal scar. You have to realize that most men who have hair loss want a longer hair style. They’re not going to want to have a clean shaved head. So the typical hair style many men like will be long enough to hide the scar for FUT.
There are three major reasons why FUT is a much better technique than FUE. First, you will have a much higher number of hair harvested per square cm. That’s because when you take a long strip of hair from your scalp, the hair technicians can much more easily extract the hair units and more precisely. It’s technically easier to slice individual hair grafts with much lower chance of inadvertent injury to the hair bulbs. In FUE, each graft is individually harvested with a punch device. Just from a technical perspective, hundreds and thousands of individual punching motion will definitely have higher risk of accidental damage to the bulbs with the extracting device.
A second reason why FUT is better than FUE is higher graft survival. Each hair unit extracted from your scalp must be transplanted to the donor site within a certain time limit. The hair units are living tissues. The longer it sits outside the body, the higher risk of hair bulb dying. Now, if you’re having a smaller number of hair transplanted, this may not be a major issue. But, as you can see from the first reason, it is much quicker to get more hair with strip technique than FUE. This quicker harvest time means quicker time to prepare individual units. Quicker time means less time outside body. A comparable large hair transplant FUE means longer time to harvest the required grafts, with increased risks of hair bulb damage (hence – lower yield per cm), and the additional time adds small risk of more hair not surviving.
The final reason why FUT is better is cost. As you can see, the strip technique is quicker to get the required hair units, quicker to prepare each graft, and quicker time to start implanting the hair units into your bald spots. FUE is technically more challenging to get each graft, takes longer, and this additional time and challenges means FUE is more expensive than FUT.
In summary, I am a strong believer that FUT is much better technique than FUE. Chats with hair transplant experts confirm majority of the world’s experts also prefer the strip technique. However, the FUE is better marketed. And for some reason, some people just feel the long horizontal scar is a higher risk than the scarring risks from FUE. I believe even the world’s top hair experts readily offer FUE because they recognize this. But they also have an army of hair techs that can help reduce the disadvantages of FUE that I mentioned above. With more techs, they can reduce the time needed to harvest hair and decrease risk of transplants dying. However, even with more techs, the FUE will still take longer than FUT. Again, I go back to the 3rd reason why FUT is better. With more techs, that will inevitably mean even more expensive price for FUE over FUT. Once you’ve decided you want transplant, then the next step is to see a board certified surgeon with experience in hair transplantation for in office exam and consultation to discuss all the factors we mentioned above.
For more information about San Antonio hair transplant surgery, please visit our interactive website at www.dryuplasticsurgery.com. Dr. Kenneth Yu Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery is a qualified team of experts serving the San Antonio, Texas area. To schedule a consultation, please contact our Concierge Patient Coordinator at (210) 876-6868 or info@dryuplasticsurgery.com.
