“Hair transplantation is the process of moving a precious limited amount of donor hair to a potentially expanding bald or thinning recipient area. We want to accomplish this in a manner that insures the patient will be satisfied with the results now and in the future. Patient satisfaction is dependent on meeting his/her expectations of naturalness and density”

— Hair Transplantation, 4th Edition

Hair transplantation has undergone a virtual revolution of change in the last 10 to 15 years. In the beginning, large punch grafts were used which led to the pluggy look associated with older transplants. This is no longer done. The desire to improve naturalness led to the use of  progressively smaller grafts. A revolutionary advance occurred when physicians observed that, under magnification, hair grows in tiny, naturally occurring groupings of 1-4 hairs called Follicular Units (FU). With this observation, physicians began using microscopic magnification to create grafts that keep these natural groupings intact, and the procedure called Microscopic Follicular Unit Grafting was born. With these tiny grafts physicans could replace hair exactly as it is found naturally, creating results so natural it is virtually undetectable, even under close examination.

Continual improvements and advancements have occurred in the field. Some of these innovations include Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE), mega-sessions, dense packing, lateral slit technique, trichophytic closures, and more. SMG has been at the forefront of most of these advancements. In this section, we will discuss some of the basic concepts of hair transplants as well as some of the more advanced techniques used at SMG.