FUE Hair Transplant, A Method That Works

Ziering Medical is at the forefront of hair transplantation surgical techniques and technology. Surgical hair restoration has come a long way as physicians continue to search for better options for their patients, developing better and better methods, giving patients more options when considering hair transplant surgery. Follicular Unit Excision and Extraction, or the (FUE) Hair Transplant, is one of these. During an FUE procedure, the donor area on the back and sides of your head are shaved, and your surgeon harvests your donor hair one graft at a time. Next, your surgeon creates recipient sites where your harvested hair grafts are gently and meticulously placed at the proper angle and orientation by the surgery technicians.

Not Scar-Less, But Minimal Scarring 

FUE provides an alternative to Follicular Unit Strip Surgery (FUSS) which entails harvesting a thin strip of tissue and dissecting that tissue into the naturally occurring individual follicular units of one to four hairs, using the Ziering microscope which has been designed specifically for hair transplant surgery.  

FUE addresses patient concerns about having a thin linear scar from FUSS procedures. It is often the choice procedure for those patients who wear their hair very short or have scalps that are too tight for strip harvesting. FUE is not a scar-less procedure, though. It leaves tiny pinpoint scars that are easy to camouflage, as the hair in the shaved down donor region on the back and sides of the head begins to regrow after your hair transplant surgery. Ziering Medical is at the forefront of this field and offers both manual FUE and robotic FUE. 

The Latest Tools and Improvements

The continuing development of the FUE technique and technology has made it more and more viable. Surgeons now have tools that can harvest grafts more efficiently. Smaller punches reduce scarring, and motorized punches have refined the way surgeons score the upper layer of the skin while reducing the depth of the scoring. So this protects the follicular unit grafts. 

Dr. Jim Harris’ SAFE System

At Ziering Medical, our team utilizes the SAFE System designed by Dr. Jim Harris for manual FUE operations. It is a blunt, motorized dissection device that allows us to isolate follicular units from the surrounding scalp. And it lets surgeons extract them directly from the scalp, all while minimizing damage to the follicles.

Our Robotic FUE Capabilities

Robotic FUE Hair Transplant Surgery is the result of the growing popularity of Follicular Unit Excision and Extraction procedures. This has caused technological advances in the field, resulting in the FDA-cleared ARTAS® Robotic (FUE) System. 

ARTAS® utilizes an optical guidance system to identify, locate, and extract follicular units under the guidance of the surgeon. This guidance system visualizes the surface of the scalp in 3D with micron-level precision. And it encompasses coordinates, angle orientation, and direction for each follicular unit while determining their density and distribution. So each and every follicular unit’s distinct parameters are updated 50 times a second. Intelligent algorithms set the alignment and depth for individual unit harvesting.

ARTAS® Accolades

As the first hair transplant surgeon in the Western U.S. to purchase the ARTAS Robotic System, Dr. Ziering went on to develop a clinical workflow for larger cases and to introduce the system in Europe. He has been instrumental in suggesting, developing, and testing innovations and techniques with ARTAS Robotic surgery, such as fathering the all-important “Robot Prep” site-making method, which promotes healing and optimal surgical outcomes. Additional contributions include:

• The first hair transplant surgeon to harvest 2,000 robotic grafts in a single session and ultimately achieve a 3,500 ARTAS graft procedure.
• The first hair transplant surgeon to perform a Robotic FUE procedure on an African American patient.
• The first hair transplant surgeon to perform Robotic FUE on a female patient.
• The first hair transplant surgeon to perform a long hair robotic FUE transplant.
• The first hair transplant surgeon to perform the robotic site-making procedure on live television.

Dr. Ziering has received the ARTAS Clinical Experience Award each year since 2013 for his work in robotic FUE hair transplants and his contributions to the development of this device. With many years of experience with this robotic technology, we do find that many patients will still choose surgery with a handheld device due to the speed and exceptional skills of our Ziering surgeons.