How “Refined” is Ultra Refined Follicular Unit Transplantation?

What is  Ultra Refined Follicular Unit Transplantation?   Why is it better?  

As most of you are aware, Ultra refined Follicular Unit Transplantation  is the current trend in  hair  restoration.   Hair transplant doctors have  further refined their techniques, instrumentation, and technology in order to provide the most optimal result.

This is a big step away from the use of minigrafts.    Minigrafts still  contain follicular units (FUs)  but are not the same as follicular unit grafting.

Simply put, A minigraft typically contains 5-8 hair bundles (though sometimes combining 2 two hair FUs can be considered a mini-graft. Please don’t confuse this with a 4 haired naturally occuring follicular unit).

A “follicular unit graft” (sometimes called follicular unit micrograft) are hair follicles as they occur naturally in 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s. Since hairs grow in these follicular units naturally, I think you can understand why this would look more natural than using minigrafts.

Let’s now discuss the difference between Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) and Ultra Refined Follicular Unit Transplantation.

The difference can be answered in two different ways:

• Ultra refined FUT typically uses skinny grafts as opposed to chubby grafts. This refers to how the FUs are cut from the donor strip – either by leaving a larger or smaller amount of tissue around each graft.

• Ultra refined FUT uses refined instrumententation making smaller incisions whereas clinics that do solid FUT don’t necessarily use these refined instruments.

Typically, however, those hair restoration clinics that use instrumentation which makes larger recipient sites are forced to space the grafts further apart  in order to minimize the risk  of shock loss  and ensure maximum growth potential of the grafts. Using smaller cutting instruments make it possible to dense pack FU grafts closer together while still maximizing growth potential and minimizing shock loss.

One could state, therefore, that the term “ultra refined” came from the fact that “ultra” skinny grafts are being cut – and “refined” instrumentation is being used by the hair transplant clinic to cut the ultra skinny grafts and make recipient sites.

Now at what point does FUT become Ultra-refined FUT could be debatable. Cleary even amongst the best clinics in the world, there are variations in techniques and instrumentation.

My overall feeling is that the smaller the recipient incision and the skinnier the cut of the graft, the better the result – assuming no damage is caused to the hair follicles.

Of course, please keep in mind that making the recipient sites too small means the FU grafts won’t fit into the sites. Slightly larger incisions would still be needed for 3 and 4 haired FU grafts.    

Here is a comparison picture I put together of another user’s crown work verses my crown work from Dr. Hasson immediately post op.     Notice the difference between the two pictures. What do you see?   In the left photograph, the recipient sites are larger and the grafts are spaced far apart.   This is most likely still Follicular Unit Transplantation however, I can’t be sure.   The picture on the right represents Ultra Refined FUT.   The recipient sites are small and the grafts are placed much more closely together creating the natural whirl effect.     See the difference?

The photograph to the right represents the even older technique minigrafts.   The scabs have all healed, but notice how large the grafts and how spaced apart the minigrafts are.

The differences in these techniques are night and day when it comes to results.   Clearly hairs grouped together as they occur naturally using ultra refined follicular unit transplantation  will leave a hair transplant patient with the most natural looking results.

You can read more and share your thoughts on our hair restoration discussion forum.

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Bill
Associate Publisher

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