About New Hair Clinic

History

The first autotransplantations (moving tissue from part of ones body to another)  of hair-follicles from the head were performed in Japan.

The purpose was not to cure baldness, but to reconstruct eyebrows in cases of burn injuries. The principles behind this new method were described in Japanese journals. Because of the war, this knowledge did not reach the western part of the world until the 50´s.

An American surgeon, Orientreich, is regarded to be the father of modern hair implantation. He demonstrated the possibility of moving hair follicles from the nape of the neck to balding areas on the top of the head. And most importantly, he understood the difference between hair follicles from those areas regarding the male pattern baldness. He correctly predicted, that hair follicles from the neck would stay resistent to the balding process, even after they had been transfered to the top of the head.

Orientreich used a punch-graft method: Small pieces of skin, often containing 20 hair follicles or more, were punched out from the back of the head. Balding punches were removed from the needy areas, usually in the frontal parts of the head, and replaced with hair-bearing punches of equal sizes. This could result in an improvement of hair thickness, but the weekness of the method became obvious in time. When the patient lost more and more of his original hair, the implants created a "brushy" look, known as "dolls hair". If the harvest had been substantial and repeated,  all the scars in the neck would make it look like a chessboard. Nevertheless, the punch-graft technique, first used in the late 50´s, became popular. It was the prevailing method for the next 25 years.

Gradually, hair surgeons improved their technique. They learned to take smaller grafts, and to remove a strip of skin. This left the patient with a far more discreet liniar scar. Eventually, the implants mainly concisted of the natural hair-follicle groups, usually containing 1-3  hair follicles. Thus the term Follicular Unit Transplantation, FUT.

The Swedish physican, who created the New Hair Clinic, learned the Brazilian method of FUT by dr Carlos Uebel in Brazil in 1990. His method was called Single Hair Replacement. Frankly, I must confess that I never liked this term, since it could miss-lead the patient to believe, that only single hair follicles are transplanted. But the follicular units represent the natural way of hair growth, so it would not make sence in splitting them up. Depending on the individual type of hair, 5-10% of the units are singles, but there are also groups containing 4 and 5 hair follicles. This means, that 1000 implants usually represents an average of 2500-3000 hair follicles.

Since the opening of the New Hair Clinic in Lund in 1991, we have only performed FUT:s (never punch-grafts), to date approximately 6000 operations. This means that we have a deep knowledge of the method, and we have also been able to refine it. As mentioned elserwhere, a modification of the original FUT, called FUE, is also available at the New Hair Clinic. In this method, the natural groups of 2-3 follicles are extracted directly from the nape of the neck, and thus a linear scar avoided.

The New Hair Clinic has a dominating position in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, but we recieve patients from all continents of the world.

We look forward to having You!