Follicular Unit Extraction or FUE Harvesting – individual follicles of hair are removed under local anesthesia; this micro removal uses tiny punches of between 0.6mm and 1.25mm in diameter. Each follicle is then reinserted back in to the scalp in the thinning area using a micro blade. Because individual follicles are removed, only small, punctate scars remain and any post-surgical pain is minimized. As no suture removal is required, recovery from FUE is within 7 days.
It differs from the FUT method in that no strip in the scalp is produced, namely scalpel and blades are not used to incise the donour site and the follicular units are extracted one by one by special biopsy needles.
In the first years of application, only a limited number of grafts, about 300 to 400 in one session, were produced. Thanks to the developments in the instrumental tools, the number of grafts produced increased up to 2000. This condition enabled both the physicians making transplantation and the patients tend to prefer the FUE method.
In 2010′s FUE method has become the major hair transplantation method worldwide. Now let us explore the respective stages of the FUE method :
a) Dissection of the Follicular Grafts
b) Collection of the Dissected Grafts One by One