hair-transplantation-the-art-of-follicular-micrografting-and-minigrafting-2nd-editionEditors: Alfonso Barrera, MD and Carlos Oscar Uebel, MD
Publisher: Thieme – 426 pages
Book Review by: Nano Khilnani

Hair restoration surgery has become a specialization into which more and more people are entering. “Precise technique and instrumentation require personal aptitude and many hours of dedicated training,” writes Dr. Ivo Pitanuy, author of one Foreword. Over the last few decades, surgeons have developed new techniques in hair transplantation, so that patients need not settle for ‘suboptimal’ results’ possible through mere ‘punches and flaps,” he writes. Nowadays, patients want a completely natural look after hair restoration.

Unlike in the past when local anesthesia was used prior to hair-restoration procedures to cure baldness, today many surgeons use a combination of local anesthesia and intravenous sedation, writes Dr. Jose Guerrerosantos, author of the other Foreword. Patients are also provided postoperative care, as in other surgeries, and given instructions for quicker healing.

Thirteen specialists from the United States, Brazil, and Spain authored the 20 chapters of this book, as detailed below. All except one are physicians. Yes, hair transplantation has become a serious specialty in plastic surgery.

  1. Part I – Fundamentals
    1. Anatomy and Physiology of Hair
    2. Patient Evaluation and Selection
    3. Preoperative Planning and Patient Instructions
    4. Incorporating Hair Transplantation Into Your Practice
  2. Part II – Technique
    1. Intravenous Sedation
    2. Correction of Male Pattern Baldness
    3. Correction of Female Pattern Baldness
    4. Combining Face Lift and Hair Transplantation
    5. Follicular Unit Extraction
    6. Combining Follicular Extraction and Transplantation
    7. Revision of Unfavorable Results
    8. Complications
  3. Part III – Special Problems
    1. Hair Transplantation to Enhance Reconstruction of the Face and Scalp
    2. Correction of Scarring Alopecia After Face Lift
    3. Reconstruction of Eyebrows and Eyelashes
    4. Correction of Hair Loss on the Crown Area
    5. Transgender Patients: Feminization of the Frontal Hairline
  4. Part IV – New Directions
    1. Benefits of Platelet-Enriched Growth Factors
    2. Benefits of Autologous Cellular Therapy
    3. Cell-Based Treatments: Tissue Engineering and Cloning

A DVD with six videos is provided on the inside back cover of this book. The videos are on:

  1. Follicular graft dissection
  2. Reconstruction of the beard, eyebrows, eyelashes, and mustache
  3. Face lift and hair transplantation in a single session
  4. Reconstruction of the lost sideburn secondary to face lift surgery
  5. Advances in aesthetic and reconstructive hair transplantation
  6. Follicular unit mega-sessions: personal approach

This being the second edition published in 2014, with the first one release 10 years earlier, several advances in hair transplantation operations have occurred, among them the ability to consistently and predictably:

  • Produce natural and aesthetically pleasing results in hair transplantation for male pattern baldness, female alopecia, and restoration of facial (beard, eyebrows, eyelashes, mustache) and body hair
  • Achieve undetectable recipient site scarring
  • Improve the donor site scar by incising longer, narrower donor site ellipses and closing the site with no tension, often without the need to undermine the edges
  • Dissect the donor strip into follicular unit micrografts and minigrafts with even greater safety and accuracy, minimizing follicular transaction (occurring in less than one to two percent of hair shafts, formerly five to ten percent)
  • Minimized facial edema and pain that would in the past persist up to 10 days after the surgery

This book is amply illustrated with numerous images: anatomical sketches, instruments used, pre- and post-operative photos of patients, drawings on the scalp depicting hair-restoration plans, procedures in progress, and more.

This is a unique book that is very authoritative, as well as quite comprehensive, in the growing field of hair transplantation surgery and management.

 

Editors:

Alfonso Barrera, MD, FACS is Clinical Assistant Professor of Plastic Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas

Carlos Oscar Uebel, MD, PhD is Professor and Head of the Department of Plastic Surgery in the Department of Medicine at Pontifical Catholic University RS in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

 

Contributors:

Alfonso Barrera, MD, FACS
Fernando F. Barrera, BA, BM
Jerry E. Cooley, MD
Marcio B. Crisostomo, MD, MS
Marcelo Gandelman, MD
Anajara Gazzalle, MD
Joseph F. Greco, PhD
James A. Harris, MD, PhD
Francisco Jimenez, MD, PhD
Jorge Augusto Moojen la Silveira, MD
Clerisvaldo Almeida Souza, MD
Carlos Oscar Uebel, MD. PhD
James E. Vogel, MD, FACS