Hair Transplant Nurse/ Technician

The generic form of the brand-name drugs Propecia and Proscar. Propecia is the 1mg tablet of finasteride used for the treatment of hair loss. Finasteride works to prevent hair loss by blocking the formation of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) by inhibiting the enzyme 5 alpha-reductase. Proscar is manufactured by Merck and is FDA approved for the treatment of benign prostate enlargement.

A type of hair loss that naturally occurs with age. During the process of aging, both the duration of hair growth and the diameter of the hair follicle decrease, producing finer and shorter hairs. The process occurs over the entire scalp and tends to be more uniform than the changes of miniaturization associated with the effects of DHT. The exact mechanism of senile hair loss is unclear.

The dead portion of the hair that protrudes from the surface of the skin. It is made predominantly of the protein keratin.

A bundle of hairs that has been removed from the donor area of the scalp for transplant into the recipient zone.

Also referred to as shock loss, is shedding of some of the patient’s existing hair in the area of the transplanted hair following a hair transplant procedure. The term does not refer to the shedding of the transplanted hair – which is almost universal. The shedding generally begins a few weeks after the hair transplant and can persist for three or four months.

In surgical hair restoration, this term refers to the frontal portion of the scalp that includes the frontal hairline and the area immediately behind it. In a hair transplant, the greatest density is often placed in this region of the scalp. In an average person, the frontal area measures approximately 30-50 cm2.

The phenomenon discovered by the famed New York Dermatologist, Norman Orentriech, in the 1950s that when hair was transplanted from the back of the head into the balding frontal region would continue to grow and not be lost, i.e., the transplanted hair would maintain the characteristic of the donor site and not be influenced by the recipient site. This is the principle of modern hair restoration but is not entirely true as the recipient site can have some influence.

A graft is taken from one person and grafted to another (i.e. kidney transplant). Immunosuppressive agents must be used with allograft transplants so that the grafts are not rejected by the host.

Occurs during harvesting of the donor hair or dissection of the grafts when follicles are accidentally cut by the blade, resulting in a loss of the hair, typically anywhere from 3-20% depending on technique. It is currently being debated how important this is since the latest cloning information shows most follicles should regenerate even if transsected.

A scalp reduction surgery in which a hooked medical device applies force to the scalp and stretch the hair-bearing areas to allow them to cover the reduced section of the scalp.

A method of removing follicular units from the “Donor Area” where the follicular units are individually removed instead of being removed in one long strip. The method heals the quickest, is less painful with less complications, and has minimal or no scarring. Currently it costs more than the standard strip method.

A flap which isn’t tied to a particular blood supply. Typically used to correct remaining bald areas after remaining after procedures such as a scalp extensions.

FUHT is just the more wordy version of FUT. It describes the same procedure. Since a follicle is “hair,” the word hair in the title is redundant.

A scalp reduction surgery in which surgically removed flaps of hair bearing skin are used to cover reduced areas of the scalp and hair line. There are different methods of scalp flap surgery.

Follicular units are the natural bundles of hairs (from 1 to 5) that grow out of the scalp. Often, one or more hairs grow out of the same spot and share some of the same anatomy underneath the skin (such as sebaceous glands). Many doctors consider follicular units superior since they preserve the follicles as they are present in the scalp before transplantation.

In between the outer root sheath (ORS) and the inner root sheath (IRS) of the hair follicle lies the companion layer, which is a single layer of flattened cells. The companion layer acts a slippage plane to allow the IRS-sheathed hair shaft to move up in conjunction with Henle’s layer while the ORS remains stationery.

A method of hair restoration surgery where hair is transplanted exclusively in its naturally occurring, individual follicular units. Single strip harvesting and stereomicroscopic dissection are required in the standard definition of this hair transplant procedure. More recently, follicular unit extraction techniques are also considered a subset of this procedure.

A scalp reduction surgery which allows a larger reduction (about twice as much reduced area) to be performed without flaps or extension.

A large graft similar to a full graft but in a line rather than a circular graft. The line graft is used to provide density behind the hair line with a more natural look which is softened by other smaller grafts for a natural look.

The traditional method of orienting recipient sites in a hair transplant where the length of the slit lies perpendicular to the hairline.