SmartGraft is a system for surgical hair restoration that is designed to improve on the manual, follicular unit extraction (FUE) hair transplant procedure. Produced by Vision Medical, Inc., SmartGraft is a suction-based system comprised of a hand-piece, touchscreen monitor, and follicular unit graft storage chamber.
The hand-piece uses a punch that is smaller than 1mm to extract grafts from the donor area. The built-in light in the hand-piece provides illumination to improve the surgeon’s visibility of the follicular units during the FUE procedure. Surgeons can add a miniature high resolution video camera to the hand-piece allowing for display of the extraction process on a high definition television or monitor.
The main component of the system is a unit comprised of the touchscreen monitor and temperature controlled storage chamber. The unit also provides suction for the hand-piece, which connects via a tube. The touchscreen allows the surgeon to control and monitor the rotation speed of the punch, strength of suction, illumination of the scalp, and irrigation of the graft storage canisters.
During extraction, the SmartGraft system separates and counts the follicular unit grafts, and stows them in a sterile solution in the temperature controlled chamber. After extraction, follicular units must be manually placed into recipient sites that are created in the balding areas.
COMMENT: Although SmartGraft is a motorized system, it is a manually operated, hand-held device that lacks robotic precision and control.
