Ideal Candidates for Body Hair Transplant

Beard, chest, underarms, pubic hair and other body sites can be used for body hair transplantation. Apart from the body, the best graft for scalp transplantation is beard followed by the chest. For Norwood Grade 6 or Norwood Grade 7 baldness that wants full scalp coverage in one sitting, body hair is needed. Secondly, patients with retrograde thinning in donor scalp and lacking a sufficient donor of the scalp may need to rely on body hair for adequate coverage. Patients with failed scalp donor hair transplant may need to rely on body hair to cover the scalp.

Beard for scalp transplantation is the second best donor after scalp. The reason for choosing beard over other body hair types is a similarity in the hair cycle to scalp hair such as long antigens phase, thicker hair caliber, a large number of grafts available, and negligible scar formation while beard extraction is a source of 3000 to 5000 grafts. In cases of scarring alopecia such as lichen Plano pillarist, beard grafts are also preferred as they are relatively resistant to the autoimmune process in the scalp.

Chest hair is after beard's third best source of grafts. Due to its suboptimal success rate over beard grafts, it is less preferred than a beard. Acutely placed chest hair, therefore, has high transaction rates. Compared to beard, the chest hair growth phase (antigens) is relatively short. They may stay much longer in the shedding phase. Third, significant post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation or hypo-pigmentation may be left. Seven days before the surgery, the chest should be shaved to pick just fast growing and thick.

Other body hair sources such as underarms and pubic hair may be used in the event of a preferred donor such as beard and chest being unavailable. Also used leg hair and forearms. They are generally not preferred because of their short antigens phase.

Ideal Candidates for Body Hair Transplant

Patient who:

• Want full coverage in one seat.
• Have poor donor of the scalp.
• Have previously failed scalp donor hair transplant.
• Have retrograde scalp donor thinning.

Procedure for body hair transplant

It is possible to perform only BHT from body hairs. For minimal scars, the surgeon must use a sharply serrated punch. Seven days before the operation, the chest needs to be shaved to select only fast-growing grafts.

Limitation of body hair transplant

• A different extended time:

Body hair transplantation is not recommended, especially for scalp hair transplantation as the body's hair roots have different lengthening time, which can take more than 60 days to make the length even in 1 inch. Scalp hair takes only 50-60 days to take 1 inch, while beard hair takes 5-6 months to grow a single inch and chest hair is all different takes a whole year to grow in one inch. So, when this body hair is transplanted to the portion of the scalp, it does not give the esthetic look and is taken at least preferable only when there is not enough scalp hair donor supply.

• The Body Hair Transplant uses the FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction):

 The FUE technique is used to extract the hair roots from the body hair transplant involves the punching machines. The hair roots are randomly extracted as the next punching requires an esthetic distance. The FUE is only suitable for transplantation of body hair as there is no question of strip off option. The other fact associated with body hair transplantation is their hair root extraction limitations as well as the limited number of body hairs that are not feasible to cover the particular scan.