Body hair transplant (BHT):
For common baldness usually the hair roots from the back of the head is preferred but in some situations hairs roots from other part of the body are used which is called BHT
Body hair transplant (BHT): Procedure: Essentially it is FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) but often bulky soft tissue underneath without strong bony support makes it difficult than that from the scalp. Usual sites are Beard, Pubic, Chest and Back.
Advantages:
- Esp. valuable when scalp donor is exhausted or limited Minimal evidence of scaring due to FUE technique used
- Large Donor area
- May be a better choice for eyebrow reconstruction where one can have better matching hairs then the fast growing thick scalp hair
- Some believe unlike scalp hair which is weakened by the male hormone DHT, body hair thrives and grows thicker and longer as time goes on
- BHT can be used to feather out the hair line by cherry picked fine BHT in patients with coarse donor hairs in the occipital area.
Disadvantages:
- Slow procedure and very taxing for surgeon not only due to awkward positioning but also this is due to acute angulations of more superficially placed follicles. The follicles are often in the more bulky soft tissue with less bony support. Some of the Body Hairs are not strong shafted to facilitate easy extraction.
- Not all Body Hairs are of good quality some may take long time to grow, and may not even grow long & thick enough (We believe Beard, armpit and Pubic hairs are of better quality hair for head hair replacement) This May leave pigmented or Hypo pigmented marks in donor site esp. in dark skin
- Most FU have one and very few have 2 hairs. 3 and 4 hair FU in BHT are practically non existent. So we are transferring less number of hairs and therefore turns out more expensive to patients.
- There is cyclical variation in the amount of coverage that the body hairs provided (due to natural body hair growth/resting cycles). Body hairs did grow longer than in their original location, but not as long as scalp donor hair.
- Persons with Fitzpatrick type 3-6 skins are prone to healing with initial hyperpigmentation (much like the dark marks that you get temporarily subsequent to an acne attack) Sometimes, instead of dark pigments, you could get lighter pigmentation (hypopigmentation) in the initial phase as well. The improvement of hyperpigmentation (dark spots) can be hastened by the use of fading creams. Wounds that heal initially by hyperpigmentation can end up finally with a much shrunken spot that is either normal in color relative to the surrounding skin or may assume a relatively faintly hyper or hypo pigmented hue.
Precaution:
For avoiding the telogen hair from extracting you need to shave the area about 4-5 days in advance of the procedure because the telogen hair are likely to be damaged during extraction due to the nature of their structure.
Body hair varies in calibre, texture and color. It is recommended to mix body hairs with scalp hair to achieve a uniform look and feel.
