How many grafts do I need to cover a bald area in the photo? (photos)

It depends on your expectations.  In general, patients with Norwood 6 hair loss need well over 5000 grafts to cover their entire head.  However, this does not mean you will have a full head of hair.  Clear communication between you and your doctor during your initial consultation is essential. Your doctor needs to understand your expectations and you need to understand what is possible given your current stage of hair loss.For example: A 10,000 graft surgery may NOT give you a full head of hair if you keep your hair short.  10,000 grafts can give you a great look if you keep your hair long and your hair quality is thick enough to provide texture and style.

You can multiply your Norwood level (e.g. 6) by a factor of 1000 to 1500 to get a rough estimate. The patient case (article) link below from the Dr.U Clinic will have a gray button that takes you to our hair transplant graft calculator as well. The gentleman featured here is also a Norwood 6. For severe baldness, the hair left on your scalp will not be enough to provide adequate coverage. You will need to use body hair. Special technology is needed to safely harvest large quantities of viable grafts for successful long term growth since body hair emerges from the skin at smaller angles.

Dear kamal123Thanks for the question. After a proper hair consultation , any hair surgeon will advice you to keep on with Propecia for a year and then it would be good to consider a hair transplant surgery. As far as I can see even there are some new hair coming up in the area in which you request surgery. I wish you all the best.

You may need more than 6000 grafts to get satisfactory density in whole area.But around 2000 grafts can give you a nice font line design which can improve your appearance completely. 

You require 7500-9000 grafts to cover the scalp with medium density. You do not have this number of grafts in your donor area so you will need to make a decision together with your surgeon whether transplanting the front half of your scalp ( and leaving the back untransplanted) will give you the look you want.  Depending on your age and the quality of hairs in your "donor" area you may or may not be a good candidate for surgery. Your discussions with your surgeon need to also take into account that further hair loss will occur in the future - this needs to be factored into the overall plan. 

If you have high quality hair (average or better weight) some salt and pepper color and enough donor density, numbers in the 5000-7000 grafts will be needed. Even with these number, the fullness throughout the scalp will not be 'full looking'. We are now combining less grafts (like 4000-6000 grafts) with Scalp micropigmentation which will give you a full look. See the website below. 

from your pictures you look likes grade six in the Norwood  scale of hair loss, and your donor hair although not apparent,  It looks like you have a limited amount of donor hair for a larger area to cover. In this case I would suggest to use most of your hair To rebuild a hair line and get some hair up to the mid-scalp area. Once the hair grows in after a year or so, if you still have any donor  hair available for a second session you can fill in the  areas for more density  and possibly do a bit in the crown area.  The surgery can frame your facial features, but you need to have realistic expectation.