Hair transplant techniques: FUE vs. FUT – What’s the difference?

Watch out for misleading claims when choosing your Hair transplant provider.

This blog is here to serve as your comprehensive guide to FUE and FUT (Strip) hair transplants. If you’re considering hair restoration, understanding the differences between these two popular techniques is essential to making an informed decision. At Follicle HT, Dr. Mark Korman and Phillip Solomon board certified surgeons and experts in Hair Transplants in Toronto. We specialize in both FUE (follicular unit extraction) and FUT (follicular unit transplantation) methods, offering customized solutions to meet our clients’ unique needs.

Discover the specifics of each procedure, comparing their processes, benefits and potential drawbacks, to help you determine the best option for your hair transplant in Toronto.

FUE vs. FUT (Strip)

• FUE and FUT both have advantages and disadvantages
• With FUT, it is only necessary to trim a narrow band of hair from the donor area, which is removed and then closed leaving a fine-line scar that is completely hidden by the surrounding hair, even on the day of surgery.
• When FUT is performed well, the donor scar is generally very difficult to detect unless a patient chooses to shave their head or wants to get a very high and tight fade haircut.
• With FUE, the grafts are harvested one by one to form a larger area. This avoids a linear donor scar in favour of tiny dot scars that are well hidden by the surrounding hair and very difficult to detect, even with a very short haircut. The disadvantage of FUE is that it takes longer, and it is generally necessary to shave a large donor area at the back and sides of the scalp, which is problematic for patients with longer hair, especially women.

Watch out for “misleading statements” when choosing your hair transplant provider

• FUE is sometimes marketed as a “scarless” technique, but this is misleading. While it is true that there is no linear scar, thousands of tiny dot scars can sometimes leave a depleted or “moth-eaten” appearance in the donor area, especially in patients who have had more than one session and cut their hair short.
• Many clinics only offer FUE. They market this as a “state-of-the-art” or “scarless” technique and disparage FUT as an outdated, invasive technique that leaves a disfiguring scar. This is very misleading to patients, and often, these clinics only offer FUE because they rely on heavily marketed commercially available automated FUE systems that are technician-driven with very little physician involvement.
• Some clinics, especially overseas, will offer FUE “mega-sessions” or “giga-sessions” with four to five thousand and sometimes more than six thousand grafts performed over one to two days. While there may be some clinics in the world that can achieve satisfactory results in this way, most mainstream hair restoration surgeons discourage this practice as it is much more risky and can lead to extreme donor site depletion and poor graft growth.

Is FUE surgery better than FUT?

• FUE is an amazing technique when performed well but FUT still has many advantages including:
  • Avoidance of shaving a large donor area
  • All of the grafts are taken from the heart of the donor area and prepared under stereo-microscopic control so the quality is extremely high with almost no graft transection.
  • FUT does not reduce the overall density in the donor area, which can be especially important among women, who sometimes have a thinner donor area to begin with.
  • Over the course of a patient’s lifetime, we can generally obtain 10-20% more grafts using FUT than FUE, which is important for patients who have advanced or progressive loss and may need more than one transplant.
• At our Toronto hair transplant clinic, about 75% of male patients undergo FUE, and about 75% of female patients undergo FUT. Sometimes, we combine FUT and FUE in the same patient.
• The bottom line is that it is important to choose a clinic that truly specializes in hair restoration and has the knowledge and experience to offer the full range of available treatment options.

Contact us today to schedule a consultation at FollicleHT, a renowned hair transplant clinic in Toronto. Take the first step toward a fuller, healthier head of hair!

Book a consultation by visiting – FUE Hair Transplant Clinic in Toronto or call us at – (905) 764-7799