Q: I had my first hair transplant of 1100 grafts five months ago. The hair has been growing in well and I am very satisfied with the progress, but the new growth appears to occur in different cycles. Some of the hair never fell out and started growing within weeks. At around three months, a lot more started to grow, and now there seems to be even more growth of new hair coming in its finer stages. Is it normal for transplanted hair to begin growing at different times? Why does some hair come in looking thick and other hair start off finer and then gradually thicken up?

A: You are describing accurately how hair grows after a hair transplant. After the hair restoration procedure, the transplanted stubble is shed and the hair goes into a dormant phase. Several months later, growth begins as fine, vellus hair that thickens over time. The hair usually does not have its original thickness right away.

Typically, growth occurs in waves so that initially some areas will have more hair than others. Over the course of a year the cycles will even out and the hair will thicken to its final diameter.

Q: I have read that in the evaluation of a patient for hair restoration surgery some doctors use a densitometer to measure miniaturization – the decrease in size of hair diameters. I read that miniaturization is a sign of genetic hair loss, but when there is miniaturization of greater than 20% in the donor area, [...]

Q: Why should a doctor measure miniaturization in the donor area before recommending a hair transplant? A: Normally, the donor area contains hairs of very uniform diameter (called terminal hairs). In androgenetic hair loss, the action of DHT causes some of these terminal hairs to decrease in diameter and in length until they eventually disappear [...]

Q: I know that both Aderans and Intercytex are doing research with cloning hair. Is there any difference in their approaches? A: Aderans is using the “two-cell” approach. They feel that the best way to produce viable hair follicles is to use a combination of inducer cells and responder cells. Each would be multiplied separately [...]

Cosmetic Surgery Times features Dr. Bernstein’s presentation to the 55th annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology in their April 1997 issue. The article describes Dr. Bernstein’s introduction of the concept of Follicular Unit Transplantation to the academy as well as the keys to making the technique successful.