Background

From the 1960s into the mid 1990s, transplanted hair appeared unnatural because surgeons used unnaturally large-appearing hair grafts consisting of 10-25 hairs each. That era is over. Hair naturally grows in 1-4 hair follicular groupings. In the early 1990s, surgeons began switching from using unnatural-appearing hair “plugs” (10-25 hairs) to using consistently natural-appearing hair follicular groupings (1-4 hairs). In current practice, all women and men should expect consistently natural-appearing transplanted hair.
Follicular unit transplantation is the standard surgical technique to treat male- and female-pattern hair loss. Follicular unit transplantation is also used to correct unnatural-appearing plug-like transplants, repair eyebrows, and redistribute hair in persons with inactive scarring alopecias.

The ARTAS System

The ARTAS System
For the very latest technology in hair restoration, Dr. Mark Bishara is now using the FDA approved ARTAS System. This interactive, computer assisted equipment employs image guidance to enhance the quality of hair follicle harvesting. ARTAS is the first hair transplant robot to improve the most challenging aspects of Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE).

Frequency

Male-pattern hair loss affects approximately 50% of all men, and female-pattern hair loss affects approximately 30-40% of all women. The rate of loss and extent of loss vary from patient to patient.
Follicular Unit Transplants (FUT) is designed to produce effective results with minimal downtime and no damage to surrounding hair follicles. Dr. Bishara is highly experienced in performing all of these procedures, and will help you determine which one is right for you in order to achieve the best possible results.  Please call our office to schedule a consultation appointment with Dr. Bishara at (817) 473-2120 or visit our website to learn more at www.MarkBisharaMD.com.

 

What is Hair Restoration?

Hair restoration includes the surgical and non-surgical methods used to counteract or slow symptoms of hair loss in men and women. Methods may be used individually or in combination to produce the desired results depending on a person’s needs. Finding the right hair restoration solution can be difficult. It’s an important decision that can improve your life in unimaginable ways. But one size does not fit all types of hair loss.

For Men

Getting straight answers about hair loss treatments for men can be almost as frustrating as losing your hair.
Some guys are great candidates for hair transplant surgery, others prefer the lifestyle advantages of the hair replacement process, and some simply want to prevent their existing hair from thinning any further. No matter what kind of hair loss you have, it’s an ongoing process that changes over time.
Dr. Mark Bishara’s office offers a variety of treatment options, including non-surgical and surgical.

For Women

Millions of women suffer from hair loss, more than 30 million in the U.S. alone. And while most treatments available today seem to be designed with men in mind, the good news is that there are safe, proven treatments designed especially for women.
Women’s hair–and women’s experiences with hair loss–are very different. That’s why Dr. Bishara will first assess why you are having hair loss and what option we can do to help you.

Hair Restoration Options:

PROPECIA®

PROPECIA® is available by prescription from Dr. Mark Bishara and is a once-a-day pill developed to treat mild to moderate male pattern hair loss, a hereditary condition that causes receding hairlines, thinning and/or balding on the top and front of the scalp. This product is proven effective for treating hair loss in MEN ONLY.

Low Level Laser Technology (LLLT)

The low- level laser therapy treatment is also known as “The Cold Laser”. The laser light generated by low-powered (cold) lasers has recently come into use as a non-surgical hair restoration treatment for patten hair loss.
The LaserCap® using Low Level Laser Technology (LLLT) can help men and women of all ages who suffer from hair loss by emitting pulses of laser light energy to the scalp to stimulate the hair follicles and improve blood circulation in the area, encouraging hair growth once again.

Robotic Hair Transplants- The ARTAS System

Dr. Bishara uses the ARTAS System, which is an interactive, computer assisted equipment employs image guidance to enhance the quality of hair follicle harvesting. Performed in both of Dr. Bishara’s offices (Mansfield & Southlake), FUE robotic hair transplant moves healthy, functioning follicles to the areas of the patient’s scalp most impacted by baldness. The implanted hairs develop their own blood supply, begin to grow and new hairs are seen a few months after the procedure has taken place. New hair continues to grow over the course of a full year, making the change in the patient’s appearance gradually noticeable to others. Healing time is short, and there is no resultant linear scar as happens with other methods of hair restoration, because there is no incision.   This procedure is done on men and women.

Hair loss is a condition that occurs as a result of a side-effect of medication, aging, genetics, and traumatic injury to the scalp with scarring. Hair loss affects both men and women of all ages. This condition may cause pattern baldness, patchy spots or thinned hair.
Dr. Mark Bishara is proud to offer a wide range of comprehensive hair restoration procedures. Combined with his extensive experience and advanced skills, these procedures are often highly effective. The best treatment option for each patient depends on the location, cause, and extent of hair loss. Dr. Bishara will take the time to evaluate each patient, discuss his/her individual goals and together develop a personalized treatment plan using one of his many successful hair loss treatment options.  Please contact our office at (817) 473-2120 for further information or visit our website at www.MarkBisharaMD.com.
 


Today’s options for hair growth have gone through a major evolution since 1952 when hair transplantation surgery was first pioneered.
Hair transplant surgery has changed completely — from large to small grafts. The large-graft technique used to be state-of-the-art back then. Treatments have shifted from unnatural-looking transplants to sophisticated new drugs and improvements in hair transplant surgery, like Robotic Hair Transplants- to the future of cloning individual hair cells. The future of hair restoration looks even brighter than the present.
According to estimates form the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 40 million men and 20 million women experience hair loss.
To perform a hair transplant, Dr. Mark Bishara obtain skin grafts with hair follicles from places on the scalp that are still growing hair (typically the back or side of the head) and transplant them into the balding areas where it will continue to grow. Today, surgeons use smaller grafts which contain anywhere from one to five hair follicles per graft; this helps give the scalp a more natural appearance. By contrast the larger grafts had 15-20 hair follicles; they looked artificial with the appearance of rows of hairs. These are known as hair plugs.

For the very latest technology in hair restoration, Dr. Bishara is now using the ARTAS System.This physician-controlled, state-of-the-art system enables the harvesting of hair follicles during hair restoration procedures. It offers numerous beneficial features, including an image-guided robotic arm, special imaging technologies, small dermal punches and a computer interface. The ARTAS System is capable of identifying and harvesting individual follicular units to implement the FUE technique. The device, guided by cameras and 3-D imaging software, can perform the dissection of hair follicles individually at a rate of up to 1,000 per hour.
FUE offers less discomfort and a faster return to normal daily activities than traditional, more invasive methods of hair restoration. Performed in Dr. Bishara’s office, FUE with ARTAS moves healthy, functioning follicles to the areas of the patient’s scalp most impacted by baldness for more dramatic results. The implanted hairs develop their own blood supply, begin to grow and new hairs are seen a few months after the procedure has taken place. New hair continues to grow over the course of a full year, making the change in the patient’s appearance gradually noticeable to others. Healing time is short, and there is no resultant linear scar as happens with other methods of hair restoration. The only evidence is tiny, white scars left in the donor area, which are the same as those produced by manual FUE.
In the case of hair transplantation, going from large grafts of hair to small grafts was what made this procedure so much more natural and because of this, more people doing better transplants today.

The Evolution Continues

Hair transplantations have continued to evolve into smaller and smaller grafts and the next step will be to add a cell-based transplant where you can inject hair seeds into the balding area that can grow into a brand new follicle (cloning). Within five years, we should be able to augment and add this to the follicle-based transplant. Cloning has certainly become possible in other areas, so it is very possible that there will come a time when hair can be cloned. If hair cloning can work that would give us the best ability to restore hair. It would deliver the best results, physically and cosmetically.
Dr. Mark Bishara is proud to offer a wide range of comprehensive hair restoration procedures. Combined with his extensive experience and advanced skills, these procedures are often highly effective. The best treatment option for each patient depends on the location and extent of hair loss. Dr. Bishara will take the time to evaluate each patient, discuss his/her individual goals and together develop a personalized treatment plan using one of his many successful hair loss treatment options.  Please call our office at (817) 473-2120 or visit our website for more information at www.MarkBisharaMD.com.
 

If you have previously undergone a hair transplant and are unsatisfied with your results, we can help you achieve the results you had hoped for through hair restoration revision surgery with the ARTAS System. Unsuccessful, unfavorable outcomes from hair transplant surgery often occur because of technical errors, poor planning on the part of the doctor, and unforeseeable complications.  For the very latest technology in hair restoration, Dr. Mark Bishara is now using the ARTAS System. This interactive, computer assisted equipment employs image guidance to enhance the quality of hair follicle harvesting. ARTAS is the first hair transplant robot to improve the most challenging aspects of Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE).

Technical Errors and Complications

If your scalp has a plugged, tightened, cobblestone, or ridged appearance, we can dramatically improve your results using the ARTAS system. Technical errors generally occur when a specialist uses sub-standard transplantation techniques. When hair follicles are placed at incorrect angles or inappropriate depths, the newly transplanted hair will grow in the wrong directions and each transplant will look unnatural and pitted.

Poor Doctor Planning

In some cases, an underqualified, inexperienced doctor can be to blame for an unsatisfying result following hair loss surgery. If your surgeon isn’t properly prepared for surgery, not only can he or she damage your healthy hair follicles, but he or she can prematurely deplete your supply of available, transplantable donor hair prior to the completion of treatment. Planning of the positioning of the hairline using donor hair is a precautionary step that must be carefully performed at the beginning of the surgical process. During this stage, your doctor should anticipate future hair loss and allocate available hair follicles to be placed in the appropriate areas.

Benefits of Hair Restoration Revision Surgery

During hair restoration revision surgery, we can:

  • Improve the aesthetic of your scalp, hairline, and hair
  • Improve botched hair
  • Conceal scaring that was a result of a former surgery
  • Create a single linear scar that masks multiple incisions that were previously made during your former surgery
  • Extract existing follicles that were miss-placed by your former surgeon
  • Implant new, healthy hair follicles
  • Alleviate the discomfort of a tightened scalp and scar tissue

This physician-controlled, state-of-the-art ARTAS system enables the harvesting of hair follicles during hair restoration procedures. It offers numerous beneficial features, including an image-guided robotic arm, special imaging technologies, small dermal punches and a computer interface. The ARTAS System is capable of identifying and harvesting individual follicular units to implement the FUE technique. The device, guided by cameras and 3-D imaging software, can perform the dissection of hair follicles individually at a rate of up to 1,000 per hour.  We have an ARTAS robot in each of our offices in Mansfield and Southlake.  The procedure is done in office and requires no downtime- most patients are back to work the next day.

Contact Dr. Mark Bishara’s Office for Hair Restoration

We ensure you will have a quality, satisfying experience when you receive treatment. Whether you are in need of hair restoration revision surgery or subsequent restoration procedures, our team is here to help you achieve the results you are looking for and natural hair your want. Don’t let an unsatisfying outcome keep you from looking and feeling your best. Contact us today at (817) 473-2120!
www.MarkBisharaMD.com
 

Fixing and Repairing Hair Transplant Scars

Hair transplant procedures that use follicular units exclusively leave no visible scarring in the recipient area. In Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT), there is a single thin line in the donor area where the strip was removed. In Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) there are multiple tiny round, white scars in the donor area, one for each extracted follicular unit. Generallythese scars are undetectable and are of no cosmetic consequence to the patient.
When older methods of hair restoration surgery are used, current techniques are performed improperly or, less commonly, when a patient is a poor healer, scarring may be excessive and may present a cosmetic problem. The scarring may be due to the plug itself (which invariably leaves a round white scar), it may be caused by the elevation or depression of grafts (seen with some slit and minigrafting techniques), or it may be due to a stretched or thickened donor scar.
Scarring in the recipient area can be eliminated by keeping recipient sites very small. Sites such as those used in FUT and FUE, will not leave any visible marks. Scarring in the donor area can be minimized by meticulous closures, where the wound edges are perfectly approximated and are under little or no tension. Using an inert material to close the wound, such as stainless steel staples, also helps to minimize the destruction of hair follicles and the incidence of hair transplant scarring.
When significant scarring does result, a number of techniques are available to reduce it. The two most effective methods are scar revision (excising or changing the direction of a hair transplant scar) and camouflage (a technique where hair is transplanted directly into the scar). In addition, thickened scars may be flattened with cortisone injections, depressed scars may be raised with dermal fillers and an irregular surface may be made smoother with dermabrasion or laser treatments.
The method for fixing hair transplant scars must be tailored to the specific situation, since each hair transplant repair patient has unique problems which influence the approach. Perhaps the most significant issue is the amount of remaining donor hair reserves. The following examples illustrate a number of common techniques used to improve scarring.
For some instead of just covering it up their scar, they just want to get rid of the problem entirely, that is why they opt for scar revision surgery. In this procedure, the scar is removed and the scalp is pulled back together. There will still be some scarring but it will be much smaller than the original.
Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) is a great method of concealing hair transplant scars. This time, the donor grafts are taken from the beard or chest hair and then implanted on the scar and given time to grow. Those with a high hair density in other areas of the body are considered to be the best candidates for this treatment. Usually 50% to 90% of the grafts grow in scars, making the scarred areas of the scalp much less visible.

Before your hair transplant surgery, discuss hair transplant scar treatments available to your surgeon. Your hair transplant surgeon can help minimize scarring by using a certain closure technique.  If you have more questions about fixing hair transplant scars or to find out more about what can be done for thinning hair, please don’s hesitate to contact us at (817) 473-2120 or visit our website at www.markbisharamd.com.