You may be wondering how so many hair transplant clinics can claim 98% success rate. How can all those clinics be exceptional? The truth is, the “98% success rate” claim has been made intentionally misleading so it sounds good in clinic marketing. What is the benchmark for a successful hair transplant and how do we measure “success”? Is a transplant successful if 10% of follicles survive, if half of the follicles survive, or if over 95% of the follicles survive?
Success rate is a confusing way of explaining the quality of a hair transplant procedure due to the lack of a clear measurement. A better and more accurate measure of success is survival – that is the number of hair follicles transplanted that go on to produce permanent hair growth. This article explains the difference between success and survival rates of a hair transplant procedure.
The Real Question
The real question we need to ask is, “how many of the implanted hairs will survive?” Survival rate is a much more accurate measure of how successful a hair transplant is.
Survival rate varies dramatically between different methods – FUT, FUE and micro-transplant or micro-FUE – anywhere from 50%-95%. At Gro, our micro-transplant or micro-FUE technique is the most refined technique and we consistently achieve over 95% survival rate.
What Factors Affect Survival Rate?
Factors that affect follicle survival rate include; how the follicles are extracted, how they are treated while waiting for transplant and how they are implanted. Two well-known hair transplant methods are Follicular Unit Transplant (FUT) and Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE).
There are several problems with these methods:
- Traditional FUT and FUE methods can cause trauma to the follicles during extraction and can also cause scarring that can be seen under short hair.
- To increase the number of grafts, some clinics will divide (cut) the grafts which often leads to the bulb being damaged, leading to implant failure.
- Handling of the hair follicles whilst preparing them for transplantation reduces their survival.
- Creating slits or holes for the implants also reduces their survival rate.
Why Is Survival Important?
Survival is important as only the hairs that survive are worth paying for. Let’s say you need 2,000 hairs to correct a receding hairline. If the procedure has a high survival rate (e.g 90%-95%), your doctor would transplant perhaps up to 2,200 hairs. Another clinic may tell you that you need 3,500 hairs for the same procedure. You may feel like it’s a better deal getting more hairs, but if only 50% of them survive, you end up with less viable hair (1,750) than you need to correct your hairline. You end up with a poor or at best average result and you also pay more for longer treatment sessions.
Not only that, but you now have 1,300 hairs less in the donor area to harvest in the future if required. Each of us has a limited number of available donor hairs, so it is important not to over-harvest your lifetime ‘bank’ of donor hair follicles in your first hair transplant session.
Gro Micro-transplant
Gro micro-transplant or micro-FUE is the most refined and delicate hair transplant technique. The tools our doctors use are less than 1mm in diameter to reduce any damage to the follicles during extraction and implantation. The carefully extracted grafts are implanted directly into the treatment area (no slits or holes are created first), therefore the follicles are more likely to ‘take’ in their new location due to a tighter fit in the skin. We also keep the follicles in a special growth solution that is also used in organ transplants, at a constant temperature of 4 degrees Celsius, to keep them healthy while they are waiting to be implanted.
Through minimum handling of the follicles between extraction and implantation, our highly skilled doctors and by providing optimum conditions for survival outside the body, we have increased our follicle survival rate to over 95%.
At Gro, our survival rate is consistently higher than the industry standard and we are the only clinic to guarantee 100% natural results.
Book Your Consultation
For personalised hair restoration information, book an online or in-clinic consultation with a Gro Hair Growth Specialist. Simply click on one of the buttons below to book a consultation or ask a question. Alternatively, you can call us on 1300 787 563.
