India emerging as facial hair transplant hub: Doctors

Mumbai: India is fast emerging as the global hub of facial hair transplant which helps people improve the density of facial hair, doctors said here on Thursday.

They said more and more people across the world have started undergoing hair transplant as human beings have lost the ability to have quality of body and hair over the years due to genetic changes.

"Facial hair transplant is the solution for people who do not have proper density of hair on the body parts, where it is required. Under the facial transplant, the new hair grown is similar to the natural scalp hair," said Mohan Thomas, a cosmetic surgeon at the city-based Cosmetic Surgery Institute.

Explaining the procedure, he said: "It involves harvesting hair grafts from the patient's own scalp. The grafts, which include the hair shafts and roots, are harvested in a strip form.

"These are then transferred to the recipient area on the face where they are placed in slits created by a needle. No suturing or gluing is needed as the natural body healing process keeps the graft in place. The hairs start to grow in the third month and the results are very good," Thomas told IANS.

Noting that there were two different procedures for the facial hair transplant, he said Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) surgery is quite simple.

"Micro grafts consisting of single hairs or combination of hairs are transferred from the back of the scalp to the front where hairs are genetically deficient. The procedure lasts a few hours. The patient can resume the social life within days after surgery," he said in a statement.

The donor strip is removed from the back of the head and consists of a strip of hairs, which will be meticulously cut, he added.

According to recent studies, facial hair transplant market is emerging as one of the most successful business in the medical arena in India.

Talking about the second procedure known as Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE), Bridush Chopra, a senior cosmetic surgeon with Kolkata-based Downtown hospital, said: "In this method an instrument is used to make a small, circular incision in the skin around a follicular unit, separating it from the surrounding tissue.

"The unit is then extracted (pulled) and teased out directly from the scalp, leaving a small open hole."

He said the number of grafts, which has been pre-determined, is harvested and this process is repeated until we have harvested enough follicular units for the planned hair restoration. This process can take one or more hours.

Comparing the two procedures, Chopra said the only difference between the two were the method by which follicular units are removed from the donor area in the back and sides of the scalp.

Studies have stated that over two lakh people every year come to India to get facial hair transplant done and the number is increasing rapidly.

Talking about the affordability, Chopra said the cost depended on the number of hairs and the extent of procedure undertaken. However, the cost may start from Rs 50,000.