Body Hair Transplantation to Head? (photo)

Question

I am a victim of androgenic Alopecia. Its been 3 years since i have seen myself with hair. Planning for a HT in a year. I have heard that body hair transplantation to head is being done in a few cases. So, how successful is that? And can i go for it rather than going for FUE or FUT?

Jae Pak, MD · Answer

If you keep your hair buzzed, a hair transplant surgery will look crappy.  Hair transplant surgery is basically rearranging your hair.  FUE or FUT is just a method of harvest.  Neograft, ARTAS, SAFE system, drills, etc are instruments.Body hair can be used but for every body hair you remove, you'll have a scar (about 1mm in diameter)

Sanusi Umar, MD · Answer

Body hair is certainly capable of thriving long term on the scalp and actually flourishes in the presence of DHT. Successful growth, however, will depend on the use of the right advanced FUE extraction technology to avoid damaging the grafts. Body hair grows at sharper angles and these donor regions are more exposed, requiring higher wound healing standards. FUT cannot be done on the body and also will leave a permanent linear scar on your scalp. Regular FUE punches are best for straight scalp hair, but not the angles of body hair. The Dr.UGraft Advanced Hair Transplant System, featuring the Intelligent Punch, enables the extraction of viable, quality grafts  from all hair locations while leaving a minimized wound footprint.
Click the link below for more details on body hair transplant (BHT), or watch the video to see an example of a this procedure & its results.

Levent Acar, MD · Answer

Body hairs are an option for hairtranspant. But the success rates with body hairtransplant (beard,chest,shoulder) is not the same in compare donor area on the temporal-parietal  and occipital part. Body hairs can transplant to increase the density on the middle –vertex part or behind the frontline.

Matthew Richardson, MD · Answer

Body hair is a potential donor area for hair transplantation, but should generally be used as more of a last resort.  The donor areas on the back and sides of the scalp are much better options when it comes to hair color, texture, and availability, and these should be the first line options for donor areas.Be sure to see a hair transplantation expert.
All the best,

Eric Rosenberger, MD · Answer

The best donor source for transplanting scalp hair is the scalp. It has the same curl, color, thickness, and other characteristics making it the ideal first choice after natural regrowth with medication. Neck beard hair is a reasonable option once donor supply has been exhausted from the scalp if it is similar enough to scalp hair to easily blend in. In your case, your beard matches your scalp in color but due to your haircut and photo detail, curl and thickness are unable to be determined. 
I advise focusing on managing your current loss by visiting with a hair restoration surgeon, initiating medical (medication) management, and, based on your current hairstyle, consider scalp micropigmentation (tattoo) as a third (non-surgical) option to increase apparent follicle density.

Jeff Donovan, MD, PhD · Answer

The most important thing to be aware of is that scalp hair is best and most predictable type of hair for growing in the scalp. So, because you have enough good donor hair in the back of your scalp, your best option is to remove this donor hair by FUE or FUT and transfer it to the areas of thinning. 

	You are correct that we can take hair from the chest, beard, arms and legs and move it to the scalp. The growth of these hairs, however, is much less predictable than scalp hair.  Chest hair and beard hair is better than arm and leg hair in terms of predictable growth.  However, the best option by far is to obtain first from the scalp. Scalp hairs are the ideal thickness and they grow long. Body hair is much finer and does not grow long. I often use body hair to improve a hairline or fill in the crown a bit. However, it's not usually the starting point for hair transplantation in most men.

William Rassman, MD (retired) · Answer

Body hair trasnsplants should not be the first choice bur rather the last choice once you used up your donor supply from the scalp. They are also very, very expensive

Amiya Prasad, MD - Account Suspended · Answer

Male pattern hair loss is one of the most
common issues for men. The rule of decades for men in their 30s is that 30%
have male pattern hair loss while for men in their 50s, it’s 50%. When you were
younger, even if you’re in the minority of the 20%, you were affected, which
can have a tremendous effect on your perception about yourself.

Male pattern hair loss has two FDA approved
options: Rogaine (minoxidil), a topical treatment; and finasteride. Minoxidil
appears to improve the scalp in patients who have diffuse hair loss in the
crown which happens in the later ages as opposed to younger men who lose hair
from the front (frontal recession). Minoxidil will not reverse male pattern
hair loss as it only prolongs the growth cycle of the hair follicle so more
hair is on your scalp at any given time.

Finasteride, on the other hand, is a remarkable
drug that inhibits an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase. This is the enzyme that
converts testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). There are hair follicles
that are susceptible to the effects of dihydrotestosterone and they eventually
become thin. If you take finasteride, you will reduce the dihydrotestosterone
and allow those thinning hairs to become thicker. Unfortunately, finasteride
has long-term sexual side-effects.  Interestingly,
in our practice we’ve been prescribing finasteride for men for many years and
we’ve had men in their 50s and 60s who are continuously taking finasteride who
are all fine. However, younger men are coming to us in their 20s and 30s and
are scared to death about taking finasteride so we won’t prescribe it.

The hair follicle is very complex. It’s been
described as the mini organ or as a zoo of stem cells. This has unfortunately
frustrated so many basic science researchers. Many patients have come to us who
have had progressive hair loss even after a transplant.  They’ve said that 20 to 30 years ago, they
were told the hair cloning is just around the corner. So I sympathize so much
with the researchers who have done remarkable work. I have synthesized a
rationale that I believe serves a basis for why clinically, I’ve been
successful in doing more in a wound healing material than any biotech company.

If you look at Wall Street and New York Times,
there are new reports of little steps that have big impacts on the research
related to hair follicles and the ability to grow hair follicles in the
laboratory. The human body is so complex that there are so many signs and signals
that have yet to be revealed. The complexity of restoring thinning hair from a
stem cell perspective is something that the body can do itself.  And when a research defines a particular
growth factor, different investors would buy the right to that particular
factor. Then they’ll do phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3 trials and get some
improvement on the growth factor. Unfortunately, Wall Street creates a lot of
valuation of stock prices but it does not create critical results in things
that can help people .

In my practice, we’ve had a lot of work in the
clinical application of a wound healing material called extracellular
matrix.  When injected under the skin
with the method I’ve developed over the past 2 years, it is able to regenerate
and restore thinning hair to thicker hair with or without taking finasteride.
In fact, we have so many patients who are not taking finasteride and many
patients who are taking finasteride and still lose hair, but all of them
responded dramatically to Hair Regeneration.

Through accidental discovery, I discovered this
technique to reverse hair thinning in male and female pattern hair loss using
extracellular matrix through a very specific method. Extracellular matrix is
derived from the urinary bladder of pigs. Although it’s derived from pigs, it
has nothing pig about it when it is applied. Even with patients who have
religious issues have been able to take this treatment because the material is
so devoid of any pig protein. It has xenogenic transferability where it can go
to any mammalian species. So it has been used by veterinarians and even human
medicine. Extracellular matrix heals by duplication by restoring tissue. It
restores the critical stem cells and signals between the dermal papilla and the
progenitor cells in the hair follicle which will then restore hair to go from
thin back to thick. In fact, our patients not only get back their hair, but it
gets darker as if they were younger.

As far as body hair transplantation is
concerned, in my practice, I would probably treat you with the injection and
would see how much of your natural hair comes back. It’s not a perfect
solution. The hair will come back thicker but it will not be as thick as the
hairs before.

I recommend that you consider this procedure
first before you consider any transplantation. I would also advise against body
transplantation because you need a lot of grafts to cover any area. In a given
transplantation, you’re going to move no more than a thousand hairs so you have
to be strategic of where you place those hairs. I would like you to know more
about Hair Regeneration, extracellular matrix, ACell, stem cell technology and
learn more about this as an option. And then have a consultation with doctors
experienced in this area before you move on with your transplantation. A
transplant will benefit most people for several years, but you don’t have an
endless supply of the donor area. So keep these in mind. I hope that was
helpful, and thank you for your question.

Sheldon S. Kabaker, MD FACS (retired) · Answer

Body hair has been used for scalp hair transplants when the supply of available scalp donor has been exhausted. I have seen some exceptional results in such situations in cases done by Dr. Sanusi Umar.

	See how your scalp hair transplant turns out before even thinking about body hair as donor material.

Body Hair Transplantation to Head? (photo)

Answers (9)

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