Follicular Unit Extraction

With the acceptance of follicular unit extraction has come a number of improvements and variations. These variations have caused some confusion among hair transplant consumers who do not know the differences between them or what they mean to the average patient.

The 3-step technique is the most commonly used today. The original follicular unit extraction technique used a sharp 1mm Hair transplant in Peshawar round punch tool to cut the tissue surrounding the follicle and then the folicle was removed. Because the follicle cannot be seen below the skin, this led to the sharp device frequently transecting (cutting) the hair follicle, potentially making it useless.

In the 3 step technique, the sharp hole punch is only used to cut the visible surface of the skin. Then a blunt hole punch is used to cut the rest of the way around the follicle – this is known as blunt dissection. Because it is not sharp, damage to the follicular unit is much less common. The third step is removal of the graft.

One of the disadvantages of the 3-step technique is that he blunt punch can end up pushing the follicular unit underneath the skin. Sometimes the follicular unit can still be removed manually or by cutting a small slit, but if not a cyst can for under the skin that will have to be taken care of later.