Undergoing FUT “Strip” Surgery After FUE Hair Transplantation

Is having an FUT (follicular unit transplantation) or “Strip” procedure after an FUE (follicular unit extraction) procedure ill-advised?  Is it better to undergo Strip or FUE first?  And Why?

While there are multiple ways to optimize a hair transplant procedure, especially for patients who require more than one, in my opinion, it’s typically better to undergo follicular unit strip surgery (FUSS) before FUE for several reasons. For starters, follicular unit extraction (FUE) has a tendency to damage the tissue surrounding the removed follicles making strip removal and harvesting clean looking grafts under microscopic dissection much more difficult for the technicians.

In other words, a typically healthy “virgin” strip will possess 100% healthy hair follicles that can be dissected and used for transplanting.  A strip harvested that has already had follicular units extracted from it via FUE will not only have fewer grafts available for transplanting due to the grafts that were previously taken, but some of the remaining follicles may be damaged due to the excessive an additional forces placed on the tissue at the time the follicular units were extracted via FUE.  So if you want to dissect (no pun intended) a hair transplant procedure, it’s far better to do FUT/strip first until you are “stripped out” and then follow up with follicular unit extraction when scalp elasticity won’t allow anymore strip procedures.

Bill – Managing Publisher