Will robotic hair transplant ever rule the World

Hair, the precious locks on the top of our heads, has become an asset today that we should safeguard like crown jewels. With the rise in male pattern baldness and hair loss, hair transplants have been gaining a ton of popularity and acceptance worldwide.

Hair transplants have been around since the '90s, being a procedure with the highest demand. Nevertheless, it can be a very tedious and time-consuming process for HT surgeons to extract individual hair follicles that are fit for grafting. With current advancements, the procedure typically consumes an entire day of the surgeon's time. But now, the rumoured revolution in this procedure has finally become a reality!

Hair transplants have rocked the world of plastic surgery for decades, as time goes on, these techniques have evolved to provide the best quality of care. From the introduction of Hair Transplant via cluster follicle transplants to the current FUT and FUE methods, it is time to welcome a ground-breaking step towards better healthcare – Robotic hair transplants!

Robotic arms have been studied and modified to assist surgeons with precise donor graft retrieval. This pioneering automated technique is equipped with cameras and specific algorithms to assess and choose the perfect donor graft viable for transplanting. This algorithm re-checks the follicles every 20 seconds before extracting the apt hair follicle via a thin metal punch (0.7 – 1.2mm).

Hair technically grows in a bunch of 4 to 5 follicles in a close region. The slim diameter of the metal punch, allows the instrument to segregate and individually extract each graft accurately. The extracted donor graft is placed on a petri dish, which is tidied up for transplanting. The graft is prepped by cleaning and removing the excess skin cells around the root of the follicle. This part of the procedure, however, is manual and needs to be performed by the surgeon. Prepping the graft is an essential step because it prevents the graft from developing cobblestones and helps the graft settle seamlessly into the scalp.

Apart from extracting hair follicles, they can also be used to transplant the follicle grafts into the recipient site. This technique is an advanced method of FUE hair transplants, leaving minimal pinpoint scarring and thus a shorted healing time when compared to the traditional FUT method. Currently, this brand new technique is only available to assist with male-pattern baldness. More specifically, utilized on male patients with dark, straight hair.

The biggest positive to this revolutionary step is that it can save the unnecessary removal of excess grafts and can cut back the procedure time up to 6 hours. Robotic assistance will allow the surgeon to calmly concentrate on the procedure, prepping the graft and pay more attention to the patient. This new system also brings in the opportunity of the physician being able to perform two surgeries in a single day while saving them from operator fatigue.

However, in comparison to the results of the ongoing FUE hair transplanting procedure, the robotic arm pays absolutely no difference. From the healing, downtime, scarring to other post-procedural steps, everything remains the same. Thus, bringing into question, is this progress genuinely required?

Nonetheless, hypothetically this situation can cost quite a buck, as the patient will have to pay for engaging the services of both the surgeon as well as the robot. Currently, hair transplants range under INR 100/- per graft, this would make the entire procedure bracket under three lakhs. Introducing robotic assistance can shoot up the price up to 5 times! Therefore, it would not play an ideal situation for Indian patients looking to save their hard-earned dough until this technique gains more importance in the future.

Validating the verdict that robotic hair transplant is a relatively new method that seems like a fancy new toy to 'assist' surgeons during the procedure. Robotic hair transplanting requires further advancements, testing and most importantly cost cuts. Nevertheless, it beams a silver lining at the horizon as a game-changing opportunity with surgeons eager to test the waters.