[Director Yoo Hwa-jeong Column] Recently, cases of hair loss patients in their 20s and 30s have been surging. So-called young people experiencing hair loss who take hair loss medication or consider a hair transplant are rapidly increasing. Along with family history, hair loss risk factors such as stress, lack of sleep, and poor eating habits have diversified, fueling cases of hair loss among younger people. Most of them are known to experience early symptoms of M-shaped hair loss.
An even bigger problem is that countless people miss the right timing for hair loss treatment. Hair loss is a progressive condition in which more hair falls out compared to normal individuals, and once it develops, it continues. Therefore, it is advisable to treat hair loss immediately in the early stage when it is not severe. It is a wise approach to move away from using hair loss shampoos or considering unverified folk remedies, and instead pursue drug treatment tailored to the type, hair transplant, and so on.
If the hair loss is not severe, improvement is possible with non-surgical treatment, but if not, a hair transplant should be considered. In particular, for M-shaped hair loss, a hair transplant is recommended depending on the stage of hair loss progression.
In men, hair loss symptoms begin from both temporal regions and clinically the forehead gradually widens into an M shape. Female hair loss is characterized by hair thinning overall and decreasing density, with hair thinning gradually from the crown toward the sides. If it is a mid-stage in which the hair noticeably decreases, improvement can be expected through hair transplant surgery.
Hair transplant methods are broadly divided into incision and non-incision. Incision hair transplant uses healthy hair from the occipital region, where the effects of hair loss are not prominent, and works on the principle of removing an area of scalp corresponding to the required hair follicles and transplanting it. A linear scar remains after surgery, but the advantage is a lower cost burden.
Non-incision surgery is a method of extracting hair follicles unit by unit without incising the occipital region and transplanting them into the hair loss area. Its advantages are minimized scarring and fast recovery speed, and for cases where the elasticity of the occipital scalp has decreased, the non-incision method can be effective.
In particular, the non-incision method is divided, depending on the degree of shaving, into full shaving, line shaving, non-shaving, and long-hair hair transplant that transplants long hair as is. In addition, there is also a combined hair transplant that blends the advantages of the incision and non-incision methods. This method can transplant a large amount of hair and minimizes the incision area so that scarring is not prominent. Since hair transplant methods are diverse like this, prior customized consultation and detailed examination are more important than anything else.
Also, the graft survival rate can be mentioned as a key point that determines the success or failure of a hair transplant. It is true that, as medical technology has advanced recently, the difference in graft survival rate between incision and non-incision hair transplants is barely apparent, but for satisfactory results it is important to closely check the surgical method optimized for each individual hair loss patient and the know-how of the attending physician.
Source: MediaFine │ Published 2021.01.15