Whilst researching all the different ways to treat your hair loss you may have stumbled upon a couple of different acronyms, including FUT and FUE Hair Transplants and wondered to yourself what do they mean or what’s the difference between the two? In this blog post, we’ll be comparing these two different hair transplant treatments to help you decide which one is right for you.
Hair transplants are one of the most popular ways to treat male pattern baldness through moving donor hair from one part of the scalp to the bald, or balding, part of the scalp – the ‘recipient site’. The two common types of surgical hair transplants are Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) and Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT):
Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT)
Follicular Unit Transplantation, also known as ‘strip’ surgery is a procedure where the hair is transplanted typically from the back of the head and moved to the balding areas of the scalp.
Under local anesthesia, the doctor will extract strips of tissue from the donor area. Once removed, the donor strip is divided into individual follicular units and held in a chilled storage solution until ready for transplantation. These follicular units are inserted into tiny holes in the balding area of the scalp and the rest of the area is stitched up. After around 10 to 14 days the stitches will be removed and form a linear scar.
FUT hair transplants are perfect for those needing large hair transplants, as the results for FUT (compared to FUE) are much superior. This is because FUT hair transplants typically provide a higher yield of hair compared to FUE hair transplants, creating maximum hair restoration.
FUT tends to also have a shorter surgery time and a lower cost, taking 4-12 hours on average. There’s also no need to shave the whole head as with FUT hair transplant techniques, existing hair can be used to cover up the linear scar left after surgery.
Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE)
FUE hair transplants differ from FUT hair transplants, as instead of extracting hair tissues in one go, each individual hair graft is carefully removed one by one. FUE hair transplant treatments are considered to be a more advanced hair loss restoration method since it provides a natural-looking finish with no pain and no permanent scarring.
In this process, a highly experienced doctor will extract hair follicles from the donor area (most commonly being the back of the neck) with the use of a specialised extraction instrument. These follicles will then be transferred and inserted back into the scalp using a specialist micro surgical needle.
As briefly mentioned earlier, FUE hair transplants will leave you will healthy restored hair with no post-surgical pain and less than a weeks recovery time. FUE hair transplants take comparably less time to heal than FUT hair transplants, as the removal of individual follicles will leave very minute scars which are impossible to see with the naked eye.
FUE hair transplants are considered to be the preferred option for those needing smaller hair transplants, transplantation to areas such as the eyebrows or younger patients, due to the sheer amount of time needed to reinsert each individual hair follicle.
If you would like to arrange a consultation to find out more about which hair transplant treatment is best suited for you then please drop an email to info@juvidaclinics.com or give us a call on 01756456016.
