What percentage of ARTAS transplants fail? (Photo)

Hair transplantation success rate will vary based on method of harvest (manual FUE, Artas, Neograft, etc).  In general, Artas has a higher success rate and more consistent harvest rate than manual FUE due to a whole host of factors.  Patients with failures in hair transplantation can be from the graft harvest aspect or poor recipient bed.  Artas helps improve uptake from the harvest aspect by selecting hairs in proper phase of growth + lower transection rates.  Recipient bed nourishment can be improved by a variety of regenerative factors to get better graft take as well.  In my hair transplantation practice, we combine these two elements in every case to help get more consistent results.  

ARTAS robot only harvests the hair follicles.  The final result depend on the doctor and the team working together to implant the hairs.  The failure rate is more related to the entire process.

Dear jtomkins007,
Thank you for posting this question. The ARTAS Robotic Hair Transplant System actually works best on patients with light skin and straight, dark hair. It’s an optical instrument that uses black and white cameras (for maximum visual contrast for the robot algorithms) to examine each hair follicle individually and use it’s 2-stage surgical punch to extract grafts. There are a limited number of reasons that a hair transplant will fail. In properly selected patients it should never fail. If a patient has scarring alopecia, wound healing problems, or other health issues then he or she may not be the best candidate for a hair transplant. If the patient is healthy and a good candidate, then it works every time. The failures in hair transplant procedures are nearly always due to inexperienced physicians, inexperienced staff, or a combination of both. Workflow efficiency is key in hair transplant surgery, and it’s not simple. I see more and more doctors who have very limited experience with hair restoration surgery, if any at all, acquire an ARTAS system and attempt their very first hair transplant procedure with a complex surgical robot. In my opinion those are the clinics and centers to think twice about. There are many dedicated hair restoration surgery centers in this country, and that’s what you should look for. A physician who has added “ARTAS hair transplant” to their long list of other plastic surgery cosmetic procedures is going to spend the majority of his or her time doing those other cosmetic procedures, and not perform robotic hair transplant every day of the week. It’s common sense that such a physician, who is in their first stages of learning hair transplant surgery could not offer the same quality of service, surgery, or final cosmetic results as a physician whose entire career is focused on hair transplant surgery. That’s what I would look for. An easy litmus test for a hair transplant practice is to ask if they offer both linear strip FUT surgery as well as FUE (ARTAS) surgery. I think it’s a red flag for a practice if they only offer one or the other. Neither method is a panacea. Most doctors who have recently entered the field and started performing hair transplant will not offer the linear strip FUT. Serious hair transplant surgeons offer all of the modern methods of hair restoration surgery, and ones that are new to it typically don’t. Look for a long history of success in the field, and a good number of before and after photos that are that are patients of the doctor you’re seeing. It takes a year or more for final results to fully grow in, and many doctors are showing patients pictures of patients that are “from corporate” or provided by the company that makes whatever hair transplant medical device that have recently acquired to add “hair transplant” to their list of services. I hope this information is helpful to you.Kind Regards,Ken Anderson, MD, FISHRS