Micrografts and Minigrafts

The new sophistication in hairline creation is brought about by micrograft and minigraft transplantation. Micrografts are small sections of permanent hairbearing scalp, each containing one, two or three hairs taken from the permanent hair at the back of scalp. At HTCS, a soft, refined frontal appearance is achieved by micrografts to give an ideal natural result. The frontal hair is then gradually merged into slightly denser 3-5 hair minigrafted areas to produce a natural confluent appearance from front to back. 

Bald Area Replacement Grafting

Using the finest instruments available, multiple small cores of bald scalp are removed from areas to be transplanted. These are replaced with donor area permanent hair-bearing micrografts and minigrafts. By removing multiple cores of bald scalp, the size of the bald area is considerably reduced as transplanting proceeds. This means that far fewer precious donor area grafts are required to effect hair transplantation as compared with the alternate method of slit grafting (see below). This has the huge advantage of not only preserving precious donor hair but also greatly reducing cost. Bald area replacement grafting should not be confused with the old fashioned "plugs" where large holes were punched in the bald scalp into which were placed large plugs each containing 10 to 15 hairs to give an unnatural clumpy appearance. In bald area replacement grafting, hair in the micrografts and minigrafts have sufficient space to grow naturally and attractively from the scalp.

Megasession Slit Grafting

This method entails making a thousand, two thousand, or more slits or stabs in the bald scalp into which donor area grafts are placed. It has several disadvantages. Most notably, unlike bald area replacement grafting, no bald scalp is removed and hundreds or thousands of precious donor area grafts - a nonrenewable resource - are needed to obtain coverage. Placing grafts in slits or stabs often produces an unnatural appearance because, during healing, the grafts are compressed causing the transplanted hair to grow less attractively from the scalp than with bald area replacement grafts. Lastly, transplanting huge numbers of grafts per session is not only wasteful but also runs the risk of overwhelming the capacity of the blood supply to nourish the newly transplanted hair. These problems are well documented in medical literature. At HTCS, bald area replacement grafting is preferred.

Scalp Reduction

At the Hair Transplantation Clinic of Sacramento, we believe that Scalp Reduction plays a vital and indispensable role in treating individuals with advanced hair loss at the top and back of the scalp. In fact, we would go as far as to say that in individuals with significant hair loss there is insufficient donor hair available to effect a comprehensive hair restoration without scalp reduction. Should you have a reasonably flexible scalp it is possible to remove as much as 95% of the top and back bald scalp with Scalp Reduction alone. This results in instant, dramatic, cosmetic improvement in addition to greatly decreasing the cost of hair restoration and the time taken to effect it. Furthermore, the removal of large amounts of bald tissue by Scalp Reduction spares hundreds or thousands of grafts.