With hair transplants becoming more acceptable, we are seeing increased demand from patients with advanced hair loss. Understandably, FUE has a big role to play but the limitation is that the numbers which can be extracted safely due to the very nature of FUE extraction. I believe that a combination approach using FUE and FUT might solve some of these issues for patients with advanced hair loss.
There are two schools of thought emerging with combining FUE and FUT. One school advocate performing FUT surgery prior to performing FUE. The problem with this method is that doing FUE becomes harder as the angles aren’t the same and the extraction becomes more difficult when trying to do FUE. This method can also cause shock loss above and below the scar. I believe the better option would be to do fue as the initial procedure and then perform smaller FUT sessions to limit the scarring.
It is more challenging to perform FUE on someone who has previously had a FUE procedure carried out on them.