What are “Follicular Units”?

Hair grows from the scalp in naturally occurring bundles of 1, 2, or 3 hairs that are clumped together in a single “follicle” or sheath. This can be seen with good magnification either by magnifying glasses, loops, illumination from below the grafts, or with stereoscopic microscopes. In our office stereoscopic binocular microscopes are used to dissect every graft. Exclusive follicular unit transplantation comes back to a point I made previously about only treating the top of the scalp with 1-3 hair grafts. While they blend in very naturally, the end result of only 1 or 2 sessions is generally a thinner look than most patients would like to have. Most patients can obtain excellent and natural looking results with better density by using a combination of grafts such as 1-3 hair follicular units for the hairline zone and a follicular unit family employing 2 combined follicular units that can contain 3-6 hairs, all held together in there naturally occurring bundles. In this manner one can achieve added fullness behind the hair line zone , while at the same time preserving the integrity of the follicular unit through the use of excellent visualization with microscopes, and yet not so big a graft as to look pluggy added density.

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