Hair Transplant Blog

My Doctor told me that other techniques could be used: the scalp reduction and the rags. I thought that these techniques were obsolete and disused.

Indeed, both techniques are less and less used. The scalp reduction consists of surgically removing the tonsure or the bald area. The scalp is then stretched to cover the bald spot. The surgery lasts about one hour and gives immediate results. It calls up hair from lateral areas. Moreover, it is quite painful and this surgery leaves a central scar which is visible and the scar can widen in the long term. The orientation of the displaced hair often looks artificial.  For more details, you can have a look on this web page.

Rags. This is another obsolete technique. It consists of displacing large areas of the scalp. The orientation of the hair transplanted does not give a natural effect. This technique could be useful during reconstructive surgery, for example after an accident.

These technique cannot be qualified as surgeries against balding, even more when they are used to redefine the front line as the final result is not natural.

I would like to understand how the trichophytic suture works? I read that it is a new technique?

This is an old technique, which has been redescovered in 2005 by Dr Mario Marzola (Australie). In 1999, during the ISHRS Congress, Dr Simon Rosenbaum gave information about it; and this technique had its rebirth during the expansion of the FUE technique. In fact, most of the patients are worried about the scar left by the strip of the FUT technique. Many tests were done until the ISHRS congress in Las Vegas, in 2007, and only one technique of trichophytic suture has been chosen. A little strip of skin is taken, about 1 mm wide, from the inferior part of the skin which is going to be sutured in order to let the hair grow through the scar during the healing. Thanks to the trichophytic suture the scar is almost always unnoticeable, sometimes undetectable. Unfortunately, we do not have many indications yet that is why it must be used very carefully.