Follicular unit excision, or FUE, is a technique that hair transplant surgeons commonly use to harvest individual follicular units (hair follicles) from the back of the head. Each graft contains one to three hairs, and as they’re implanted, the surgeon angles them in the growth direction of your hair. The permanent results should re-create your natural hairline and growth patterns. Because the scars aren’t as obvious as those left by the follicular unit transplantation (FUT) technique, FUE harvesting is ideal for men who want to keep their hair trimmed very short post-surgery.
Who’s a good candidate for FUE hair transplant surgery?
Hair transplant procedures like FUE are especially good at treating male-pattern baldness, a receding hairline or baldness at the crown or temples that’s caused by a combination of genetics and the male hormone dihydrotestosterone. This type of baldness usually begins with a receding front hairline that progresses until it creates a bald patch on top of the head. Given that half of men have some degree of hair loss by age 35, hair replacement is a hot topic.
If you have all-over hair thinning, which is more prevalent in women (or as a result of previous chemotherapy or other conditions), you may not have enough healthy, viable follicular units to harvest from a donor site, so you’d need to consider other hair loss treatments. The donor hair should also not be in the process of miniaturization, meaning on its way to falling out.
