• Social Impact
• Causes of Hair Loss
• Why Hair Transplants Work
• History of Hair Transplants

• WHY HAIR TRANSPLANTS WORK

  The first description of hair transplantation was actually written by Dr Okuda in Japan in the 1930s. He used hair transplantation to treat burn victims during WWII. However records of his work were lost after the war. In 1950 Norman Orientreich MD rediscovered the process and successfully performed the first hair for transplant in the United States for patients with MPB.

  He proved when “donor” hair from the permanent horseshoe shaped fringe area on the back and sides of the head was moved to the balding “recipient” area on the top of the scalp that it continued to grow and did not fall out. Donor hair from the fringe area retains it genetic programming even after it is moved and stays insensitive to DHT. It is this property of donor hair remaining insensitive to DHT and not being affected by local properties in the recipient area that enables transplanted hair to grow. Orientreich called this property “donor dominance” and it is the property that makes hair transplantation possible.

  WHY DO HAIR TRANSPLANTS WORK

  • Donor dominance

    

  Donor fringe hair is sensitive to “DHT”

It is important to point out that this fringe of donor hair is a finite and limited area that can only produce a finite and limited amount of donor hair. The concept of a limited donor supply is an important concept in hair transplantation as it places a limit on what we can accomplish.

Although Orientreich demonstrated that we could move hair and it would indeed grow, the original procedure often created an unnatural look with and therefore had limited application. The desire to improve naturalness has led to many improvements in the technique, more natural results and a broader range of applications.