Is 1000 FUE grafts enough? (Photos)

Question

Hallo, im 29 years old and suffering from Hairloss since 10 years. I am using propecia since 8 years and was able to stop hairloss now. I want to get a hair transplant and was suggested to do a 1000 FUE Grafts transplant. Would this be enough to cover my hairloss? What do you think about my donor region? Thank you for your help

Jae Pak, MD · Answer

You can add 1000 grafts but if you lose 1000 of your native hairs you would be left with no gain.  Thus it is best to see a doctor for an examination and consultation to make sure surgery would be right for you,

Jeff Angobaldo, MD · Answer

Thank you for submitting your question, at your age, would recommend to continue your finasteride. PRP, laser cap and taking amino acids is also recommended. When you are ready for your FUE, approx.  2000 grafts would help create more density.  Best wishes.

Bernardino Arocha, MD, FISHRS · Answer

MarcoRollo,Greetings, and thank you for your question. I enlarged your top down pic and it looks to me like you are developing a crown lost pattern that is progressing forward to the mid-scalp area. It may not stop there. The fact that you have had to foresight to be on Propecia for the past years is good, but distressing that despite that your hair loss appears to be progressing. I would recommend that you consider maximizing your medical regimen to include minoxidil 5% twice per day, biotin 5 mg daily, nizoral shampoo every other day , and Lasercap Pro every other day. SMP may decrease the contrast with your scalp making it look thicker in the crown /midscalp area. I would reserve your available donor for maintaining the frontal area. Of course, an in person evaluation would be the best option to start the process.Kind regards,Bernardino A. Arocha, MD

Miguel Mascaro, MD · Answer

Thank you for all of your pictures - the question you ask is particularly tricky because of the location.  Transplants to the crown in young patients are difficult because we simply do not know where your hair loss is heading.  What is your family history of hair loss?  Are you following any particular pattern similar to people in your family? Are you one of the ones to start hair loss the earliest, or is this pretty common? The reason all these questions are important is because we need to understand where you are headed - the last thing we would want is use donor hairs that would come in handy later on in future hairloss.  The other question to eval is density at the recipient site.  This determines how many grafts you would need pending yield after transplant.  My suggestion to you is go into your consultations knowing this information, and make sure your hair restoration surgeon discusses all these issues with you.  Best of luck!

Koray Erdogan, MD · Answer

Your hair loss area seems to be 80 square centimeters with a density of more or less 20 follicular units per square centimeter. Your estimated hair caliber looks like 55-60 microns. Probably your hair loss will increase with time in spite of being on medication. Satisfactory coverage of the crown area should be 50 grafts per square centimeter. So for a full natural and satisfactory result you will need about 2400 grafts in total. I don't have enough photos of your donor area to be exact, however, from what I can see, given your donor area, I might suggest that you protect some grafts for future transplantation using a combination of FUE for the first surgery plus micro-pigmentation.

Jeff Donovan, MD, PhD · Answer

In my mind, the question is not so much how many grafts you need and is the donor area okay but what does the future hold. We are extremely cautious of the crown before the mid to late 30s.First, the area is about 94-100 cm2. Which means that 1800-2000 would be nice to use in the area to boost the density up by 20 follicular units per sq cm. If one wants to be cautious then fewer grafts are appropriate for sure. 1000 grafts would boost the area by 10 follicular units per sq cm. Future balding is likely and at 29 we don't really know what balding is in the picture for the front over the next 15-20 years. Crown transplants are tricky. The skill and thought and planning that is needed for crown hair transplant surgery can't be overemphasized. They are the toughest of all. You have about 4000-5000 grafts to move in your lifetime. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. Placing them in the crown might look amazing at 30 and 31 but make sure you have a plan in place when further balding occurs. I always advise my patients that they can't assume they'll be on finasteride forever. I always encourage patients to get several opinions. There is sometimes no right or wrong answer but there is always an option that is well thought out with calculated risk/benefits.

William Rassman, MD (retired) · Answer

The crown balding you are showing can be treated with 1000 FUE grafts provided that the hair is not fine. Fine hair often takes more grafts.

Is 1000 FUE grafts enough? (Photos)

Answers (7)