I’m in the middle of researching a transplant for myself and I’d like to better understand why hair transplants fail. I also know that the term “fail” can be subjective depending on expectations. It would see that graft survival rate should be one of the primary factors confirming if successful transplant or not. Below are other factors that come to mind with failed hair transplants. For those who have had transplants or in the business else am I missing? Generally speaking, what % of transplants are successful vs unsuccessful?
Instances where patients can cause failure:
Instances where patients can cause failure:
- No Medication: Not taking medication such as finasteride, dutasteride, or Min or
- Insufficient Post-Op Care: Touching, scratching, or improper washing, sun exposure,
- Lifestyle: Smoking, excessive alcohol, poor exercise routine
- Surgical Errors: extraction errors (poor punch selection), graft management, implantation technique (improper angle/direction), over-harvesting from the donor area, and poor hairline design.
- Poor Technique/Handling: Damage to hair follicles during extraction, or letting grafts dry out during the procedure.
- Poor Candidate Selection: Performing the procedure on patients with unstable hair loss, insufficient donor hair, or underlying scalp conditions.
- Poor Blood Supply: Reduced blood flow to the scalp
- Underlying Conditions: Undiagnosed auto-immune conditions, inflammation, hormonal issues, oxidative stress, chronic telogen effluvium, senescence cells, fibrosis, etc.)
- Poor Graft Survival Rate: Could be many unknown reasons for this (including many listed above)