Body Hair Transplant by Follicular Unit Extraction: My Experience With 122 Patients

BACKGROUND Body hair shafts from the beard, trunk, and extremities can be used to treat baldness when patients have inadequate amounts of scalp donor hair, but reports in the literature concerning use of body hair to treat baldness are confined to case reports. OBJECTIVES This study aimed to assess the outcome of body hair transplanted to bald areas of the scalp in selected patients. METHODS From 2005 through 2011, 122 patients preselected for adequate body hair had donor hair transplanted from the beard, trunk, and the extremities to the scalp by follicular unit extraction (FUE) by the author at a single center. All patients were emailed surveys to assess surgical outcomes and overall satisfaction. RESULTS Seventy-nine patients (64.8%) responded with a mean time of 2.9 years between date of last surgery and time of survey. Patients were generally very satisfied with results of their procedure, giving mean scores of at least a 7.8 on a Likert-like scale of 0 to 10 for their healing status, hair growth in recipient areas, and overall satisfaction with their surgeries. These scores were comparable to mean scores provided by patients whose transplants included scalp donor sources. CONCLUSIONS FUE using body hair can be an effective hair transplantation method for a select patient population of hirsute individuals who suffer from severe baldness or have inadequate scalp donor reserve. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE 4 Therapeutic.