Follicular Unit Excision in Patients of African Descent: A Skin-Responsive Technique.

BACKGROUND

Follicular unit excision is a favored minimally invasive hair transplantation method. However, it is suboptimal for many patients of African descent because of wide variations in hair and skin characteristics.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the performance of a skin-responsive follicular unit excision device, which accommodates hair curliness, skin thickness, and firmness in patients of African descent.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The authors retrospectively evaluated patients who underwent scalp follicular unit (FU) excision using a skin-responsive technique at 7 multinational clinics. The preoperative donor grading for the anticipated difficulty used a scale with Class V indicating the highest degree of hair curliness, skin thickness, and firmness.

RESULTS

Of 64 eligible patients (45 males and 19 females), 28 had Class V FU excision donor grades. The mean transection rate for all patients was 3%-6%, which was highest in class V patients. Skin thickness and firmness had a greater effect on the maximum transection rate than hair curliness. Only 19 or 18 G punches were used.

CONCLUSION

The authors report consistence success of a new skin-responsive FU excision device for all patients of African descent with a mean graft transection rate of less than 10%. The findings support skin thickness and firmness as major influencers of graft attrition rate.

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, Inc.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Dr. S. Umar owns shares, patents, and patent applications for the reported FUE device issued to Dr. U Devices Inc. (Patent Nos: USPTO US8876847B2 and USPTO US9095368B3) and pending with Dr. Devices Inc. (Patent Application: PCT WO2019203882A1) and reports no other potential conflicts of interest for this work. All remaining authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.