Chance of Infections from Hair Transplant Clinics

Dr. Rassman,

Given that most of the hair transplants typically do not take place in strictly-regulated facilities / hospitals, and that the invasive procedure takes hours to complete — what is the chance of suffering an infection (HIV, Hepatitis, other blood-related ones) from a transplant?

I asked same questions to my dentist and according to him HIV virus cannot sustain for more than 15 minutes outside human body, but there is a very low risk of Hepatitis infection if the dental facility does not follow the strictest standards.

Do hair surgeons follow some minimal set of established operating guidelines to prevent infections et al?

Thanks

All medical facilities should follow established operating guidelines, but there are no guarantees. The HIV virus dies almost immediately when the virus is outside of the body and exposed to air. Hepatitis is more robust and some forms of the virus can move more easily between people. One of the reassurances may be to ask to see medical facility licenses and check if the hair transplant clinic is certified as an outpatient surgicenter, as ours is. Hair transplants are done under ‘clean’, not sterile conditions, but all equipment should be autoclaved or disposable to avoid infections. In our hands, infections are very, very rarely seen. I can not comment on other facilities or other doctor’s track records. With our certification process, our infection rate is compared to hospitals or other outpatient certified facilities and we do better than most. For most hair transplant facilities which are not certified, there is no review process from ‘outside the clinic’ so it would be impossible to answer your question. I suspect that infections are relatively rare in most clinics.