Is 2800 - 3000 grafts in a single FUE session of 3-5 hours possible?

Thank you for your question. It is certainly possible, but you are right in noting that 1500 grafts is average. Always consult with a board certified facial plastic surgeon with plenty of experience as evidenced by their years in practice, education credentials, before/after photos and testimonials. Best wishes,

3000 FUE grafts in 3 hours may be possible but it is likely not normal. Even with the best surgeon there is a patient component.  Some patients are not good FUE donors and the harvesting process can be very slow and tedious. 

The question should not be if it is possible; the question is if you would like to have this done.An experienced surgeon can extract about 500 grafts an hour while taking care of each and every single graft. At 1000 grafts an hour, he would have to rush it a bit. Lets say he rushes and extracts 3000 grafts in 3 hours. Then you have to have a lunch brake and the recipient incisions have to be made. This will take another 2 hours atleast. A team of placers that are very experienced will place these grafts at 1000 grafts an hour. All these add up to 8 hours if the procedure is rushed!Don't forget that body hair extraction is almost twice as time consuming as scalp hair.The surgical plan made for you actually deserves two full surgical days about 7-8 hours each!!I don't see why a patient would want to have the procedure done in a couple of hours that he is going to have once in a life time and a life changing result is expected.

Thank you for posting your question. Absolutely, 2800 to 3000 grafts are doable in a 3 to 5 hours time span for HARVESTING phase, haven't heard of an entire procedure of that size being performed within that time range. On average, harvesting should be around 1000 to 12000 grafts an hour, depending on how many grafts are needed plus design and incision can take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours, then you have the implanting time for a few more hours. Hope this helps.

Extracting the 2800-3000 graft 2-3 hours is possible and many doctors are performing that already but as far as I understood during the extraction another team will be performing the insertion which I find an unnecessary way of performing a hair surgery. Without any rush your surgery can be performed in 5-6 hours on a single day fue session.

The speed of FUE extraction can vary widely between patients.  While it is potentially possible to complete a 3000 graft case in a 6-8 hour period, it is not common.  At our clinic, we typically try to go at whatever rate is safe and efficient for the patient and their hair types.  For a someone that requires 3000 grafts, we will most likely make the incisions the night before.  This takes around 2-2.5 hours.  The next day we will start early around 730-800am and continue until 5or 6.  If we feel that there are characteristics that may make the case take longer (skin type, hair caliber, medical history, etc.) we might spread the case over 2 days.

We popularized the FUE starting 6 years before anyone in the world started doing the techniques we published in 2002.  We have developed considerable speed in doing FUE at a rate of between 1000-1500 grafts per hour. So the FUE extraction rates he is claiming is possible as we do it all of the time.