Old Micrografting Techniques


Micrografting was revolutionary in that it first utilised high powered microscopes to create its hair grafts. Unlike previous methods which simply took a circle of scalp and attached it to another circle on the top of the head, this method takes the donor hair strip then uses stereomicroscopes to cut out follicles, nowadays follicular units, according to their natural growth pattern.

Although the use of the microscope greatly enhanced the hair grafting procedure, micrografting surgeons used to take individual hairs out of the strip and place them around the hairline. This gave the front of the head a softer, more natural look, but it did not have the thickness or the sustainability that moving hairs in follicular units have. When the hairs are moved as a unit, they have their own gland and muscles so they can be nourished as soon as they are placed into the incision. Moving only one hair follicle at a time, in contrast, sometimes lead to hair follicle death.


Current micrografting techniques work much like FUE procedures because the follicle unit is actually transplanted intact. In fact, alternative names for this procedure are FUG, or Follicular Unit Grafting, and FUT, Follicular Unit Transplantation. With these methods, entire units are removed from the strip and are placed on the scalp following the natural hairs’ angles along the hairline or crown as necessary, just as in FUE.


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Guide to Old Methods of Hair Transplantation