Disappointed by HASCI "hair stem cell" transplants: permanent redness and low density

ken1987

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Hi everyone

I'd like to share my story here so that others may benefit from my experience and not make the same mistakes I have so far. I've been worried about hair loss ever since I was 18 or so, since my temples went bald very early on, and my father is completely bald so I knew the problem would only get worse as time went on. However, when I heard about a hair stem cell therapy offered by HASCI in the Netherlands, I got some hope. Previously I did not start any treatments because I know I will likely progress to NW6 or NW7 eventually. However, their claim - backed by research papers and celebrity testimonials - is that there is "virtually complete regrowth of the hairs in the donor area" which would allow for virtually limitless procedures. As such, I decided to tackle the problem early on and enjoy my youth with a full head of hair.

The first hair transplant was performed on 2013-03-12. Nine months after the surgery when final results were supposed to be visible, I was quite disappointed by the density though. Some redness was also still visible, which the doctors assured me would dissipate within a year after the surgery. I scheduled a second hair transplant for 2014-09-22 which was a year and a half after the first one. Each time they did about 1,600 grafts.

It has now been almost a year and a half since the second surgery and my hairline seems to be receding faster. Density in the temples is slightly higher than after the first surgery, but not what I was hoping/expecting. In fact, earlier this year I shaved my head for the first time because I was considering going for SMP as to avoid chasing after my receding hairline. Unfortunately, I found out that my scalp is just too red in the transplant area, it looks horrible especially under artificial lighting at certain angles. Since it has been a year and a half since the final surgery I am worried this might be permanent.

Recently, I've read some disturbing information about the HASCI clinic (summarized at http://www.hasci-exposed.com/analysis.html) and indicate that the claims made by Dr. Coen Gho at HASCI are deceitful.

Personally, I feel like I spent about 20,000 USD in vain and all I got were two poorly executed FUE treatments which left me with damaged skin and possibly limited my options for both going bald gracefully as well as having enough donor hair left to keep from going bald.

Right now I am consulting with some other surgeons to see what options I have left in terms of further hair transplants. I have several questions I'd like answered to decide on my next course of action. If HASCI has been deceitful about their claims and does not offer a solution I fully intend to file a lawsuit personally or a class-action lawsuit if other disadvantaged patients present themselves;

1. Is HASCI indeed a scam and if so, why hasn't this come to light yet after several years of them making claims and performing surgeries?
2. The fact that hairs seem to be at odd angles and pointing in different directions, is this due to my type of hair or were they implanted incorrectly?
3. Are any treatment options available for the redness in case I go the SMP route? Lasers seem to have their fair share of risk as well of further discoloration.
4. I trusted the doctor to decide on the shape of the hairline, but it seems to me that they chose one that does not look natural, is that correct?

== UPDATE 2016-02-18 ==

Today I had a Skype consultation with Dr. Gho. We discussed the topics I had doubts about.

REDNESS: Not explained

He says it's the first time he has ever seen redness lasting this long (just my luck) and rather than offering a solution for the redness, he offered to hide it with a free-of-charge third procedure to fill up the low density areas and gaps so the redness would no longer be visible using a new technique (pick & place).

NEW TECHNIQUE: Proof pending

He told me to watch a video (in Dutch) about the new technique which is the only information I've received so far. Supposedly the difference is that the hair is inserted at the time the perforation of the skin is made, and as such smaller punch size suffices and there is much quicker healing and less issues with blood and crusts. I'm waiting for more information by email since the video isn't exactly scientific evidence nor does it provide much information about the technique itself:

http://www.hasci.com/nl/nieuws-media/new-beauty-looks-seizoen-6-aflevering-4/

What I find a bit odd is that according to some videos on their website, the punch size in the recipient area is already as small as the one from the donor area (0.5 mm), so I don't understand how they would use an even smaller punch as the graft wouldn't even fit anymore.

DENSITY ISSUES: Not explained

I told him I had read the information on HASCI exposed and asked him to clarify why density with HASCI is apparently much lower than with normal FUE techniques. He sort of dodged the question saying that natural density will never be achieved, especially on a first pass. He followed this up saying that one wouldn't want too high density hair in the temples since as my natural hair starts thinning out, I'd have unnatural looking results. However, none of this explains why there seem to be consistent complaints about density with HST. I have seen some FUE results and often these look much denser on the first pass with less grafts than my two transplants for a total of 3,200 grafts.

ANGLES OF TRANSPLANTED HAIRS: Not explained

When I asked why the hairs were growing in different directions, he did not really provide an answer about the flaws in his current technique, but mentioned that with his new technique there should be more consistency in hair direction along with the other benefits.

DONOR REGENERATION & MULTIPLE HST'S: Proof pending

When I mentioned my main worry is the news report about Dean Saunders being depleted after three HST transplants, he declined that the donor area could have been depleted and said the doctor who did a body hair transplant on him didn't know what he was doing. He assured me that I would be able to do at least 8 and likely up to 11 total transplants and said that he has clients who have had 8 of these. I asked if I could see photos and speak to these people to hear about their experience with HASCI. He replied that he would ask them if their contact information could passed and said he could not send photos without permission. He sent me a photo of a donor area of someone who had had 4 transplants for a total of 6,000 grafts, which did not seem depleted. On forums I have read that people have between 3,000 and 7,000 grafts available for transplant in their donor area depending on original density and other factors, so I would still need to receive more information and references.

PARTIAL EXTRACTION: No proof provided

When I asked about the doubts raised at http://www.hasci-exposed.com/partial.html he told me that there is no way to really see the difference with just a photo, one would need to use a microscope to see the difference between normal FUE grafts and their HST grafts. It seems odd then that their presentation includes regular photos showing the difference rather than photos from under a microscope. In fact, the photos taken by HASCI Exposed seem to be of higher quality than those used in their presentation.

HAIRS PER GRAFT

I touched the subject of the number of hairs per graft being lower than the industry average. He said that in the temples one must use 1-hair grafts for natural results. I haven't done much research into the ratio of 1 vs 2 vs 3-hair grafts in the temples so this may be true, but for providing coverage on the remainder of my head I would be worried that two passes are required with HST and density is still disappointing.

CONCLUSION

I'm not convinced at all at this stage. I'll wait for his email to see what evidence and references he provides regarding his new technique but unless there is some very compelling information, I still feel he owes me a full refund for at least the surgeries since there is no evidence that I now have more hairs than I did before or that they even used the techniques they explain on their website. In fact they should be happy refunding just the surgeries considering the travel expenses I incurred, lost time/productivity and possibly costs for treatment of the redness they caused.
 

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shookwun

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May not have enough grafts for fue but fut is still a viable option to harvest a couple more procedures which on average should yeild about 5000 grafts.

Consult with Hasson & Wong. They are north American surgeons who are known for their quality workmanship in fut. Providing world class hair restorations through mega procedures.


FUT rele is the only option, and you need to consult with the best.
 

resu

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A FUT wouldn't be good for him since his dad is fully bald he won't have the option to shave the scalp if the time comes. I would just try and see what the issue with the skin is, check with a derm and see if usual treatments of rolling, pealing and retin-a would resolve the issue.
 

shookwun

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It's fine. A FUT scar only requires 200-250 grafts on average.

With trichoscar closure even SMP would be an alternative to covering up the scar.
 

Swoop

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To answer your questions by the way;

1. Yes, Gho is a charlatan. Dunno why he is able to claim regeneration, while it's bullsh*t. Also, I don't think Gho is a good hair transplant surgeon at all.

2. Implanted incorrectly. Angles are off.

3. Dunno about this. Other surgeons can maybe repair you and relocate the hair follicles. I don't know what the exact reason of that long lasting redness would be. Perhaps the grafts are implanted improperly and that causes long lasting or permanent inflammation, which leads to redness? Maybe it will fade.

4. The shape that was drawn is not the problem imo. The end result is. It's sub-par.
 

Pequod

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It's hard to make a lot out of that without more photos, I mean it has been much longer than 9 months and these are the only photos you show. After one bad procedure you should not have done a second.

You need to be on Propecia/ finasteride to stop more hair loss, also you don't say how many grafts they did. Whatever the amount for $20,000 US you got little coverage. The contract you signed for the hair transplant probably spells out how to deal with disagreement. It may be arbitration so you get some money back.
 

resu

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If the hairs are growing at the wrong angle it would be an explanation for the redness and inflammation.
 

ken1987

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Damn, how many grafts did you get in those 2 sessions on your temples?

I had 1,600 grafts done on each occasion.

- - - Updated - - -

If the hairs are growing at the wrong angle it would be an explanation for the redness and inflammation.

Could you clarify why this would be the case and what possible solutions might be available?

- - - Updated - - -

It's hard to make a lot out of that without more photos, I mean it has been much longer than 9 months and these are the only photos you show. After one bad procedure you should not have done a second.

You need to be on Propecia/ finasteride to stop more hair loss, also you don't say how many grafts they did. Whatever the amount for $20,000 US you got little coverage. The contract you signed for the hair transplant probably spells out how to deal with disagreement. It may be arbitration so you get some money back.

Good suggestion. I should definitely have done more research after the first transplant, but what I had heard is that with any hair transplant only about half of the normal density is achieved and I figured a second one would bring it close to 100%.
 

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arfy

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That HASCI website should be posted on every forum on the internet! And I'd say that similar complaints hold true for PRP, Acell, Histogen, and other "cutting edge" treatments. They're trying to get more guys into the surgical chair by holding out false hopes.

If the hairs are growing at the wrong angle it would be an explanation for the redness and inflammation.

I don't see the connection? I don't know how Gho does his procedure, but in "shaven" procedures, how does anybody implanting the grafts know exactly what direction the grafts will grow? In many cases, the techs or doctors are guessing. In other cases, they are in too much of a hurry to spend time rotating the grafts so that the follicles will emerge the correct way. And I wouldn't be surprised if Gho's recipient incisions weren't correctly angled to begin with, too. This looks particularly shoddy.

It's fine. A FUT scar only requires 200-250 grafts on average.

That probably assumes a "pencil thin" strip scar, which most doctors can't consistently deliver (ask for a written guarantee of a "pencil thin" scar, if the doctor claims it's a standard outcome). And are FUE doctors easily growing hair in strip scars now? I remember a few years ago, many guys couldn't easily camouflage their strip scars.
 

resu

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If the angle is too off the follicle could be growing hairs ingrown.
 

ken1987

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I don't notice any bumps or visible in-grown hairs though, just redness. You mean it's purely below the skin? Are there any case studies of previous cases and possible solutions? If this is the cause then the only way to fix the problem would be to take out the grafts and put them back at correct angles but has that ever been done or is it even possible?
 

Pequod

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I had a bad ingrown hair a couple weeks ago that went deep red, so you don't have that problem. My guess is some of the grafts died after the procedure and never grew back, it is that simple. Also the doctor i think is right in not placing 3's in the frontal area, they did all 1's with me but then I have an FUT so they had a choice of which to place where.
 

resu

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Yeah one shoddy Indian scam "doctor" implanted hairs upside down, they had to be removed by another doctor. Don't know what is the case of the redness in your case but it's not a common occurrence other than in the first weeks.
 

arfy

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For redness, consider trying a facial soap which contains Salicylic acid (the ingredient found in some acne face washes). Salicylic acid is the active ingredient in aspirin. Aspirin is anti-inflammatory, and redness is inflammation. Acne washes reduce redness in your complexion, so it's highly possible that it will do the same for your scalp. Just a theory - you might want to try it on one side only, and see if there's a difference.

I started a thread about Salicylic acid here:

http://www.hairlosstalk.com/interac...nd-the-problem-of-redness?highlight=salicylic
 

xyzxyz

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I had a HASCI procedure a year ago, and experienced most or all of the same problems, and some other problems too.

The worst part of my experience was that the shape of the hairline now looks completely unnatural. When the surgeon drew it on my head after shaving my head, I told her it looked weird, but I didn't know how or why. She adjusted it by a millimeter or so, but it still looked weird to me. She told me it looked fine, but she said I could think about it for half an hour or something, but then they had to start the procedure or they wouldn't have enough time to complete it. I was given no further explanation as to why the hairline was supposedly right for my head shape or hair type. I was given no options (e.g. in a hair salon, they show you reference photos that you can pick from). I was given no explanation about how hairlines differ between different cultures and ethnicities, or how they change with age, or what sort of hairline I should pick to ensure it didn't look unnatural 10 years from now (I just turned 40, so this is something I have to think about -- young hairlines on old guys look weird). I was just told to think about it, and when she came back half an hour later, I didn't have any more answers or any other idea what was bothering me about it, so I told her "Go ahead with it, I guess." Now that I look at it, I see that the curvature of the hairline is weird and unnatural, and she put hair too far forward in my temples for my age. I wrote to HASCI about this recently, and the surgeon wrote back and said that she had indeed trained in hairline design and studied hairlines. But she didn't respond to my questions asking why I wasn't shown comp sheets or given explanations as to tradeoffs in hairline designs, or to explain my options.

Some other problems I had, off the top of my head:
  • HASCI said there would be very little or no pain after the procedure. I experienced pain so bad I wanted to scream, starting around day 2 and peaking around day 4 after the procedure, and back to mild by day 7. Day 4 was my 10 hour flight home, and I was verging on being curled up in a ball trying not to cry or scream for the entire flight. There was nothing I could do, and the four paracetamol they had given me had long since run out (I really should have been on morphine). It felt like a combination between hot pokers ramming into the back of my head and insects crawling under my skin. It was almost unbearable.
  • One side of my head was significantly more swollen and red after the procedure than the other, and fewer of the grafts survived in the recipient area on that side, and/or there was a mass-die-off of existing hair on that side due to the swelling. My hair is much thinner on that side now than the other side, and much thinner than even before the transplant, as far as I can remember. There was a different technician working on each side, so I asked HASCI if there was any way that that could have contributed to the problem, and they denied that there was any possibility of that causing an effect.
  • My scalp was really red for a long time after the routine. I can't quite tell if it has settled down, because I haven't shaved my head again, but now that the original poster mentioned it, I think I can see redness in the recipient area of the scalp. BTW ignore all the replies here about the redness being on the surface, or using salicylic acid etc. -- this is a 3D problem, not a surface problem. The grafts go into the scalp something like 6mm, and when they use that awful 6mm punch to make the holes for the recipient site, it cuts through *tons* of nerves, capillaries, arrector pili muscles and sebacious glands. It's very hard for your scalp to recover from that. I wish they would use a '+'-shaped puncture tool so they didn't have to actually excise any tissue. This would dramatically increase the odds of healing.
  • Even a year after the procedure, I don't have all feeling back in my scalp in the recipient region. The hair is quite noticeably drier and more wirey in the recipient region, presumably due to important components of hair follicles like sebaceous glands missing in most of the transplanted follicles.
  • There are little blackish dots around the base of each transplanted hair follicle (hard to describe, but it doesn't look like how hair normally comes out of the scalp). Originally, there was a pit around each follicle where a dry dot of blood had been sitting, until they all washed away at about day 6. I think if I cut the hair short today, the weird little spot around each follicle would be quite obvious. I asked HASCI about this, and they said if there were originally indentations, it was because the grafts were placed too low (they should be sticking up just above the skin at time of transplant, because the outer layers die and shrink back). They checked my photos and said they were all placed at the right length.
  • The hairs were definitely implanted on all sorts of weird angles for me too. To the original poster: also ignore the comments by other people above about this, they don't know what they are talking about! -- the problem is that almost all hair naturally curls, and HASCI doesn't care about or think about the *rotation* of the hair follicle when they place the grafts, they just shove them in the holes. I actually asked them about this issue before my transplant, because I already thought about this issue of transplant rotation, and they brushed off my question and said they knew what they were doing. But once my hair had grown out to about 5-10 mm, it was quite obvious that the hair directions looked really unnatural. Turns out that now that I watch videos on Sam Lam's YouTube channel, hair follicle rotation is indeed an issue that HASCI should be thinking about (Sam Lam is very careful about that with his own transplants). Check out Sam Lam's channel. (I am not affiliated with Sam Lam, but I have an inquiry in right now to see if he can help fix the problems with my previous transplant.)
  • The density of hair in my transplanted area is not normal at all, you can see right through it. Almost all my grafts look like they were single-follicle grafts. When they did the first transplant, it was quite clear they couldn't pack the recipient sites much closer together, or all the tissue would die, due to cutting off all the blood supply. Given a 0.6mm punch, I don't think they can realistically place these grafts closer than about 1.5mm apart. Followup procedures could probably fit a few more grafts in between the others, but the punch size is so large, and you'd already be punching in between scar tissue, such that I think you couldn't get more than about 50% increased density with a followup procedure (you'd lose some existing follicles in the process).
On the positive side: I have an actual hairline now, which I didn't have before. This is an improvement. But I have to brush my hair forward, because the hairline is quite conspicuously weird.

I don't notice any thinning of my hair on the back of my scalp, but I haven't shaved my hair again to check closely. In spite of all the negative points above, I'm considering another HASCI procedure before going with something like Sam Lam's strip method, because (1) I really don't want to do the strip method, and (2) I want to get some more mileage out of the hair on the back before permanently removing some of it, even if I do eventually do the strip method. Even if HASCI only turns 100% of hair into 130% (rather than 185% as claimed), and even if transplanted hair are single-follicle, maybe it's worth it. I'm concerned about the permanent scalp damage (reddening, inflamation and numbness), but I'm going to try to see if they'll consider using a different punch shape or size (maybe you could ram a 6mm graft into a 3mm punch hole, given that tissue is soft?). I'm also going to try to convince Sam Lam to do a HASCI-style FUE procedure (he doesn't do those right now, I asked once a year ago before I went with HASCI). If I go with HASCI again, I will require them to match the curl of the transplanted follicles with the natural curl direction. (Sam Lam doesn't shave the scalp if possible so he can do this matching; I think maybe you can see the curl direction even when looking at the shaved head -- just put the curl in the direction of curvature of the hair follicle patterns.)
 

ken1987

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"Even if HASCI only turns 100% of hair into 130% (rather than 185% as claimed), and even if transplanted hair are single-follicle, maybe it's worth it."

Well, according to several surgeons who are experts in this field, and according to the HASCI Exposed website, there might be less than 100% since they could be damaging the follicles:

Low hair/graft transplants, give the illusion that HASCI can transplant more hair than anyone else.

HASCI uses smaller drills than their competitors. This results in lower hair/graft transplants. To explain this, first let's look at what's the average hair/graft ratio in general is. A review of the literature reveals a significant variation among different authors regarding the counts of hair density and average hair/graft on human scalps, which is probably due to either racial variations or to the methodology used to count the hairs per unit area. Dr Unger described in his " Hair Transplantation, 4th edition" an average of 2.3 hairs/graft for Caucasians. Other doctors like Bernstein and Rassman talk about 2 hairs/graft (Dermatologic Surgery 1997; 23(9): 785-799). I decided to check those numbers with actual hair transplants, found on hairloss websites and checked the first 50 cases I found. My findings for those 50 cases: average for FUT: 1.86 hair/graft and average for FUE 2.16 hair/graft results The reason the FUT number is a bit lower, is that with the FUT technique, stereo-microscopic dissection is used to dissect the grafts and either unintentionally or intentionally grafts are sometimes split up. See: http://www.bernsteinmedical.com/fut-hair-transplant/graft-numbers/
FUE on the other hand seeks to extract the whole FU and normally the doctor doesn't dissect the FU into smaller parts.

Now, let's look at HST. HASCI is one of the few clinics who dont give their clients a breakdown of hair/grafts for the transplanted follicles, and that's for a very good reason ! There's only one known case where HASCI actually DID supply a graft break down, so let's first look at that.

Hasci supplied the number's for this case: 150 singles, 50 doubles, that's exactly 1.25 hair/graft !! But let's look at another case. A famous HASCI case on the internet is that from forum user 'gc83uk', who went several times to hasci. Since his recipient was 100% bald due to a certain disorder, his case is perfect for analysis.

I marked a square in his recipient, which was previously 100% bald area, so all grafts were transplanted via HASCI's HST. I counted all hairs and grafts: analysis As you can see it totals 1.28 hair/graft !!

Again, almost all singles. Of course in this case one could argue that a hairline picture isnt the best showcase of average hair/graft, since most doctors will put the singles in the hairline, However, not the whole temple is the hairline and you see mostly 1's everywhere. And even more, if you look behind the temples you can spot transplanted hair easily, since it's thicker than my original hair and again, mostly 1's.

So, what does this all mean ? If we'd take 1.28 hairs/graft as HASCI's average and 2.15 as the average for a FUE, then HASCI transplants 1.28/2.15 = 59.5 % of the hair that a FUE doctor would transplant with the same number of grafts. So if HASCI says they transplanted 1600 grafts, then that's the equal of 950 FUE grafts !

So, again, if you read that somebody had 4500 grafts at HASCI, then keep in mind that corresponds to the same amount of hair as 2700 FUE grafts.

They split follicular units, which gives the illusion of regrowth.

We saw in point 1 that HASCI transplants per graft about only the half of the natural hair per graft. If we look at the petridish we immediately understand why

petridish.jpg


As you can see in the 1's section, almost all grafts actually consist of 2 hairs, but only one of them has a graft attached (the 'bulb'), so these correctly will only generate one hair. So what happens is that HASCI drills a 2 hair graft, transects one hair and ejects the other half including its follicle. This effectively is the splitting of natural occurring follicular units, or grafts. The result is that in recipient one hair will grow, but also in the donor, one hair will grow back where the graft was ejected ! This is key to HASCI's regrowth fable. But of course, this isn't really regrowth, it's just a 2 hair graft that's being split up in two halves while one half is moved to recipient and the other one stays in donor.

Expert opinions

1) DR WOODS - THE INVENTOR OF FUE

"So here is some background, and then a summary of what Gho is up to. Dr Bob Limmer was the guy who , back in the late 80s said that strips removed should be dissected into intact individual FOLLICULAR UNITS under stereoscopic control, ie magnification. While struggling with my concept, the only doctor worth talking to was Dr Limmer. We first spoke in 1993. He thought my work was interesting , but impracticable due to the inevitable high transection rate. He thought it was of no practical significance. But I still called him from time to time to give him updates.

The following year, he sent me his published paper. He implied that FUE would generate a majority of transections, and transections produce a grossly inferior yield. The idea that stem cells could make follicles magically multiply was a fascinating academic pursuit however.In his study, he took a completely bald guy, and placed transected follicles, at varying points along the follicle , into different areas. And he reported his results , the same as I witnessed on countless occasions: YES, transected follicles, be they lateral or partially longitudinal can regenerate a terminal hair….too bad that the yield is very very very low. In my own observations since 1993, about 5% . And Dr Limmer also observed that while regrowth can occur, the success rate is negligible and NOT viable . The same holds for partially transected hair in the donor . Regrowth varies between zero and negligible.

But the fact that a tiny percentage of hair will regenerate is fascinating to academic scientists working in the most acclaimed multidisciplined reputable institutions in the world working with multimillion dollar annual budgets…AND they still can’t crack it. But Dr Gho has. By simply coring out a follicle, with 2 power magnification, he is claiming to do what no other scientist on earth can achieve. He is turning one into two. But it gets more impressive. This then becomes an ENDLESS supply.

I paid $86 bucks to read this. It is long , convoluted and denched with scientific jargon and tables. But here is a summary. Now remember, Gho has been claiming he has been doing this for several years: “this technique enables us to generate 2 hair follicles from 1, with CONSISTENT RESULTS and preserve the donor area. “95.9% of implanted hair survived ….AND 97.7% of removed donor hair had COMPLETE REGENERATION..

The study had 5 PATIENTS…it was for 12 months, and approx 800 hair was transplanted. And how many hair did they show regrow from the approx 800 transplanted with a STATED 95.9% survival…ONE. You read correctly. One shaft. I repeat . ONE HAIR. They could only show ONE hair after 12 months. But wait, they did state most will grow out in 5 to 8 months. And word is they have been doing this technique for years !!

And finally, the conclusion: “the weakness of the study is the limited number of patients……therefore a larger group of patients is necessary to study the REAL CLINICAL RELEVENCE of this technique “

WHAT DR GHO SAYS IN THIS “PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL” IS DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED AND CONTRARY TO EVERYTHING I HAVE OBSERVED SEEN AND STUDIED OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS, AND I AM NOT ALONE

Every guy who suffered permanent scalp shock and trauma simply because techs jabbed incisions too close to pre existing hair knows that this study is flawed.To anyone seriously contemplating this treatment, please take this advice: Pay $86 bucks, get the paper, and spend a long consultation with a credible non aligned, independent dermatologist to review this for you. It may be a good investment"

Dr Ray Woods


2) DR RASSMAN

"I just chaired the session at the annual ISHRS meeting in Amsterdam and had Dr. Coen Gho as one of the speakers. I had lost my voice, so I could not comment as the chair of that session, but considering that you asked me about him, I will use this as a forum to speak my opinion on what I heard.Dr. Gho reported that he did 1500 patients with his “cloning” procedure. IF I HAD TO GIVE A SCORE TO THE MATERIAL HE PRESENTED USING A 1-10 SCALE FOR SCIENTIFIC CREDIBILITY, I’D SCORE IT A 1, WITH 1 BEING THE LOWEST POSSIBLE. HIS SCIENCE WAS PATHETIC, WITH SLIDES THAT WERE BLURRED AND BLACKENED OUT SO THAT THERE WAS REALLY NOTHING TO SEEHe claimed that his FUE technique cut the follicular units in half longitudinally, and that the part that remained regrew hair, but there was no proof of this in any of the material he showed. He did not show any patient results and certainly was never reviewed by any credible agency or physician.

Partially divided follicles have been well studied by many prominent researchers. Despite their attempts, none succeed to create even an equal amount of hair (equal to the original divided follicular units). Dr. Kim (Korean researcher) had done some wonderful research on this very subject and failed to do what Dr. Gho claims. I believe that what I heard from Dr. Gho is marketing hype without any evidence of any hairs regrowing."​
 
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Cue Bald

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lol so all he does is split a follicular unit, transplant one half in recipient, leaves the other in donor, and claim that as a "magical regeneration" of a follicle? damn, that's so shady, why would anyone go to this guy ?
 

ken1987

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UPDATE 2017-02-22

I had previously requested more information from HASCI, but after repeated attempts to receive the following:

1. Detailed information (white paper or case study) about the new procedure Dr. Gho mentioned which is usually only used for burn victims and eyebrow transplants.
2. Contact information for a single patient who has had more than 5 treatments in their clinic so I can ask a few questions.

All I was able to obtain within a year of asking was another Skype consultation with Dr. Gho where he basically made the same promises and repeated the same statements without substantiating anything with evidence. I re-iterated that I wanted to either (a) receive all the necessary information to feel confident that a follow-up procedure would produce the desired results or (b) receive a refund as per their refund policy "Indien grafts niet groeien zullen deze zonder bijbetaling opnieuw geplaatst worden bij een volgende behandeling. In geval er geen groei is na twee transplantaties zal 50% van de door mij betaalde behandelingskosten aan mij worden geretourneerd."

I will wait and see if there is indeed any evidence to show that this new procedure would (a) not cause permanent redness as the last procedures have, (b) result in an acceptable hair density, and (c) not cause further donor depletion.

So far, he has sent me the following documents, but neither seems to explain anything about the new technique. One was an article from 2010 about the partial longitudinalfollicular unit transplantation (PLFUT) technique which has already been debunked on HASCI exposed, and the other was one about using that technique for eyebrow restoration, but with no mention of doing anything different than the techniques they used which resulted in my current situation. It only states that "partialfollicular units are extracted in a longitudinal fashion with a diameter of 0.5 to 0.6 mm", which is exactly what they claim they did as well during my first two hair transplants.

In the meantime, I'm still looking for a proven solution with more affordable rates to rectify the density in my temples. I was in touch with Dr. Tugrul Maral from Maral Hair Klink and he said the following;

"There is no such a stem cell transplant, and there is no unlimited supply, dividing follicles can only damage them and not only the transplanted hair does not grow but also the donor hair is damaged and depleted. Dr. Gho's comments are all accurate about this fake technique and about the HASCI. You are a victim of HASCI, your duty must be to convey all the facts about this fake hair transplant clinic HASCI, they must be exposed, they are perfect SOBs. Sincerely, Dr. Maral"

Following that advice, unless HASCI comes up with some seriously convincing materials in the very near future, I intend to make sure others don't fall into the same trap I did. I'd like to hear from others who have had a transplant with HASCI. If you're one of their patients, please post about your experiences here!
 
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ken1987

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UPDATE: 2017-11-17

I've had some issues in my personal and business life, including a death in the family, which have prevented me from investing much time until now, but I will be following up soon. Unfortunately, it seems that the HASCI exposed website is now offline. I'm glad I copied some information to this forum before it disappeared. Once again, I would like to call on more people who have been scammed by the Hair Science Institute to speak up and/or reach out to me. I am considering a class action lawsuit since not only has HASCI lied about the regeneration, they also mutilated me with their shoddy work.

I wish I still had the option of going bald gracefully, but because of the thick hairs they implanted where they do not belong, and the permanent redness and swelling, that will never again be an option. I've been consulting with other doctors and it seems that the best course of action might be to undo the work HASCI did, and then implant thinner hairs with the correct orientation and density in their place.
 
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