Hair Transplants Can Help More Women with Hair Loss

Islamabad Nov 2006

In the early days of hair transplants, women with thinning hair were not usually considered good candidates for the procedure.

But now, newer techniques make it an option for most women, two New York doctors say.

Hair transplantation involves removing a strip or plugs of hair from a denser area of hair growth on the scalp and using the donor hair to replace lost hair in thinning areas.

More than 20 years ago, when the technique was new, it was not recommended for most women because the transplant techniques produced limited results.

Older methods required actually removing some hairs in the balding area to accommodate the transplant. That reduced the "net gain" of hair from the transplanted tissue.

>And with women, there was another factor: doctors' perceptions that female patients would be unsatisfied with the results of hair transplants, which cannot completely restore the density of young, naturally growing hair.

But improved transplant techniques -- coupled with the more realistic expectations many female patients have -- make the approach an option for most women, according to Drs. Walter P. Unger and Robin H. Unger, of Mount Sinai Medical School.

Writing in November's Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, they say that hair transplantation is an often forgotten, but useful, treatment for female pattern hair loss. Although better surgical techniques have been around for more than decade, many medical professionals are not aware of them, according to the authors.

In an interview, Dr. Walter Unger explained that in years past, surgeons would remove round plugs from the donor site of the scalp, and in placing them in the recipient site would have to remove some existing hairs. This approach also produced multiple small scars in the donor area.

Current techniques involve removing a strip of hair, so that after the area is sutured there is only one thin scar.

The donor strip is then divided into many tiny grafts that are placed into small holes or strips in the recipient area. The method allows surgeons to place transplanted hairs between existing ones.

"Today we don't remove any hair," Unger said.

He also pointed out that contrary to the traditional belief that women generally would settle for nothing less than a thick head of hair, most female patients have realistic expectations. He said women should expect the surgery to make their hair "significantly thicker, but not thick."

Unger advised that women with thinning hair first see a dermatologist or endocrinologist to find out whether a skin or hormonal condition is behind the hair loss. The underlying problem can then be treated. If no treatable condition is identified, a woman can see whether she is a candidate for surgery.

Another problem in treating women with thinning hair is that quite often they have diffuse rather than patchy hair loss, with no good donor sites of dense hair.

Unfortunately, in such cases, hair transplantation is still not a satisfactory option.