For those suffering from hair loss, they can choose from among three things: they could wear a wig, buy those new hair loss medications that are now available in the market, or, if they want clearer, faster and more direct results, undergo hair transplantation surgery.

But many questions bug those who are considering hair transplantation surgery. As hair transplantation procedures involve transferring hairs from the "donor area"—mostly the back and side of the head—to those thinning areas, many patients are worried that the donor areas may become scarred with the incisions that a hair transplant surgeon will have to make.

But here’s good news for prospective patients: an Australian doctor initially developed a relatively new technique, which practically avoids any incision in the donor area during the course of hair transplantation surgery. Instead of making incisions, individual follicles from the back and sides of the head could be painstakingly extracted with the use of a tiny circular-shaped punch, leaving no scar in the donor site in the process.

This technique is called follicular unit extraction. With FUE, there is no single incision made in the donor area. Instead, the donor area will be left with multiple tiny holes that only take about a week to heal.

Please visit the www.foundhair.com for more information about follicular unit extraction.

Dr. Jeffrey S. Epstein of the Foundation for Hair Restoration even developed his own version of this technique called follicular unit microextraction. Known by the acronym FUM, Dr. Epstein’s method allows hundreds of grafts to be harvested in a single procedure using 1.3 mm ultra-sharp punches. And all this are done without any kind of incision in the back of the head.

Upon extraction, each follicle is dissected free, under microscopic visualization, from the surrounding non-hair bearing skin, which then can be implanted in the donor site into tiny incisions.

Like other surgical procedures, however, direct follicular unit microextraction has its downsides and limitations. Those with curly hair or very fine hair, cannot be candidates for the procedure, since their hair type are at greater risk of damage, and therefore makes for poor growth of the follicles that were harvested.

Another downside to direct follicular unit microextraction is the much longer time required to perform the procedure. The maximum number of grafts that can be transplanted in a single three-hour procedure is about 400 to 500 follicular units only.

Most importantly, direct follicular unit microextraction is approximately three to four times more costly than the traditional microscopic follicular unit grafting.

These limitations notwithstanding, many patients of Dr. Epstein regularly undergo direct follicular unit microextraction, since with FUM, the healing of the donor site is much quicker and without sutures, while the transplants heal just as quickly as those of patients who opted for the more traditional follicular unit grafting.