IS FUE The Treatment Of Choice Over Strip Hair Transplant Surgery?

It appears FUE has become the treatment of choice among patients. My goal would be to receive as many intact grafts of “terminal” hair as I could get from a transplant. I may be off but it seems to me strip surgery comes closest to that goal. I’ve read up to 25% of grafts could be damaged at some point during FUE procedure. And considering the wide donor area I would think some grafts could from from an area more likely to thin than from where a strip is performed. I could be off here too, but I would think FUE would leave the donor area more thin looking than strip where it’s just one spot and the hair above would cover evenly.

If you have more than one strip surgery that means another long scar for each surgery?

There are some misconceptions in your question. FUE is not the treatment of choice. FUE is a great alternative to strip surgery since it does not leave a linear scar. FUE leaves thousands of 1mm circle dot scars. Patients who have FUE over strip are the ones who want to keep their hair very short or don’t want the “idea” of a linear scar despite never being able to see it (as their hair will always cover the scar). Many patients after weighing in the pros and cons end up choosing strip surgery over FUE as they realize no-one will ever see the scar as they keep their hair relatively long (up to a 3 guard).

FUE has some disadvantages in that the harvest and growth rates do vary widely among patients as well as the doctor’s experience. FUE can also leave the donor area looking much thinner than the strip. Finally many patients do not realize you can have multiple strip surgeries over the same scar – effectively having just one scar overall.