The Woods Technique
Body Hair Transplantation

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The Woods Technique
Summary & Highlights 

If you are considering surgical hair transplantation as an option for hair loss,  please insist that your doctor offers you full disclosure about a new breed of hair transplantation technique that is minimally invasive, patient friendly and does not leave the patient a linear scar in the back of his head for the rest of his life. Nowadays surgical hair transplantation can be performed with no scalpels, no stitches, and no legal disclaimer. This new technique was first brought to the mainstream by Dr. Woods & Dr. Campbell, commonly referred to as The Woods Technique or FUE which stands for Follicular Unit Extraction. Any hair transplant doctors who does not offer full disclosure about FUE to their patients is not acting in the best interest of the general public. 

Dr. Ray Woods & Dr. Angela Campbell

THE PROCEDURE
Comparison	The Woods  Technique	Traditional Strip Transplant
A truly minimally invasive, non-traumatic, patient friendly, micro-surgical hair restoration procedure.
There are little or no complications associated with the procedure. Patients are NOT required to sign any legal disclaimer or consent form prior to surgery.
Multiple procedures can be done in consecutive days.
THE PROCESS
Comparison	The Woods  Technique	Traditional Strip Transplant
The entire procedure is performed strictly by doctors to ensure best in quality control. Technicians or nurses are NOT used during the entire procedure.
No scalpel is used during the entire procedure. The donor follicles are not harvested by cutting open a strip of flesh from the patient's head that can measure up to 6 inches or longer.
The procedure is performed with local anesthetic. No intravenous or intra-muscular sedation is required.
High magnification video camera display allows patients to verify in real time both the donor follicles extraction process as well as the transplantation process in the recipient site.
The surgery is performed micro surgically using Carl Zeiss 'Scanning' 5 x 300 optical loupe and Zeiss Opmi 'Pico' 25 power operating microscope.
Largest instrument to be used for follicular placement is a 21 gauge hypodermic needle.
DONOR HAIR
Comparison	The Woods  Technique	Traditional Strip Transplant
Donor hair conservation and protection. Donor hair is micro-surgically extracted one follicular unit at a time and is  efficiently utilized during the entire procedure. There is no cutting and dissecting involved. Spoilage and wasted grafts not an issue.
Patients with insufficient scalp hair can now use body hair as donors and achieve equally acceptable results.
SCARRING
Comparison	The Woods  Technique	Traditional Strip Transplant
Patients will NOT be left with a linear scar that stretches across the back of their heads for the rest of their lives.
Patients do NOT have to worry about the need for future surgeries to camouflage the linear scar in case it stretches over time.
COMPLICATIONS
Comparison	The Woods  Technique	Traditional Strip Transplant
Patients do NOT have to worry about donor site complications, eg: the linear scar incisions being too high, too low, too deep, too wide
A lesser chance of permanent shock fallout as a result of the surgical procedure.
A lesser chance of damage to occipital or temporal vessels.
A lesser chance of damaged nerves pain and paresthesia.
No need to worry about tension on the edges of the wound.
A lesser chance of excessive coagulation (paresthesia, hair loss in scar area).
POST-OP & RESULTS
Comparison	The Woods  Technique	Traditional Strip Transplant
Patients can buzz cut their hair real short after the procedure without showing any visible scar.
No stitches or bandages are required after the procedure.
The donor site can heal in as little as 5 days after the procedure.
Pain or discomfort less acutely perceived during and after the procedure.
No need to permanently wear longer hair in the back of the head to camouflage the scar in the donor site.
TRANSECTION OF FOLLICLES
Comparison	The Woods  Technique	Traditional Strip Transplant
Lower transection rate. There is NO risk of precious donor follicles being permanently destroyed when the scalpel cuts through the skin.
Transection rate is verifiable for the patients.

  = YES   = NO

No Legal Disclaimer Required. As far as we know, Dr. Woods & Dr. Campbell are the only hair transplantation clinic in the world where legal disclaimers and waivers are NOT REQUIRED. 

The Woods Technique is only performed with local anesthetic. The procedure is much less traumatic to the patient than traditional hair transplantation. There is no intravenous or intra-muscular sedation as is required in other hair transplant procedures.

The procedure is available for everyone. Absolutely no need for a 'Biopsy Test', 'Trial' or 'Test Patch' prior to our procedure. 

Commonly up to 4 sessions can be performed within a 4-7 day period, (approx. 5,000 individual hairs). Also 8 procedures can be performed in 14 days (approx. 10,000 individual hair)

In general, The Woods Technique allows for greater numbers of transplantable hair without the normal scarring, trauma and follicular damage.

Scar repair, eyebrow reconstruction and other repair work are also available at Dr. Woods & Dr. Campbell clinic. Dr. Woods & Dr. Campbell can repair and restore damaged and 'misplaced' hairlines due to 'OTHER' procedures. This means taking hair from 'Plugs' or 'Skin Flaps' (Rotations), and placing it into bald patches and 'gaps' elsewhere. The area from where the hair was taken is repaired by a Microsurgical Skin Graft. 

Graft for graft, the Woods Technique takes more time and is more labor intensive than traditional hair transplantation. But at the same time, the procedure is more patient friendly and less traumatic than traditional procedures.

Chest & body hair transplantation. This is for people who have damaged and depleted donor areas due to strip excision and other types of surgery. It is also useful for thickening the vertex and crown areas.

Unlike traditional hair transplantation, no strip excision is required during the surgery. Patients will not be left with a linear scar across the back of their head after the procedure. No stitches, no sutures and no scalpels are required.

The donor hair is extracted by removing the individual follicle 'cylinder' units from the back of the head, one by one, through 'micro-incisions' of approximately 0.8-1mm. Diameter. Each follicular unit contains only 1, 2, or 3 hair. Up to 600 of these individual follicular unit 'cylinders' (also called 'grafts') can be transplanted in one session. 600 grafts contain approximately 1,200 individual hairs. 

The 'micro-incisions' in the donor site shrink to approximately 0.7mm within hours of the procedure and form tiny crusts that disappear in 7 to 14 days. There are no visible scars in the donor site.

Donor follicles extraction normally takes about 1 - 3 hours depending on the number to be transplanted. 

Prior to transplanting the donor follicles, local anesthetic is given to the recipient (ie. balding area) and after a moment, becomes totally 'numb'.

A mirror is provided to the patient so he can observe and advise on the
placement of your hair. High definition magnified video monitoring before, during, and after the procedure is also available upon request.

The follicles are inserted using 21 gauge* hypodermic instrumentation (0.8mm). Where appropriate, 23 gauge* (0.6mm) instrumentation is also incorporated in hairline restoration. This allows the follicles to be replaced in their normal anatomical position ie., the natural cylindrical shape of the follicle is intact and the top of the follicle is flush with the surrounding skin. (*the higher the number, the smaller the needle).

 Only the follicle itself is inserted, without excess tissue attached to it. According to Dr. Woods & Dr. Campbell, the recipient circulation can be totally devoted to nourishing just the newly implanted follicle. The limited circulation in the recipient area does not need to support unnecessary non follicular tissue which is taken from the donor area in other procedures. This allows the fastest re-growth and the highest percentage of immediate 'take rate' possible.

The Strip Excision
Intravenous injection of narcotic drugs, (eg. Pethadine / Morphine) and sedatives, (eg. Valium / Hypnoval) are usually required.

A strip of flesh approx. 10-14 cm long, of various width (approx. 1-3 cm) and approx. 1.5 cm thick is cut out from the posterior scalp. According to Dr. Woods & Dr. Campbell, this is too traumatic and they believe excessive skin and tissue removal can 'stretch out' the remaining skin, leave unsightly broad scarring and 'thin out' the posterior hair. Haemorrhage, vascular and nerve damage is a risk of this strip excision.

The surgeon gives this 'strip' to his assistant who places it onto a 'cutting block' . As the surgeon sews up the wound on the back of the head, the assistant commences cutting the strip of flesh into small rectangles. Sometimes, the assistant uses a stereoscope in order to see better.

Cutting thick soft flesh into very small rectangles containing single follicles can be very tedious and Dr. Woods & Dr. Campbell believe it can be very traumatic to the hair follicles. There are limitations on how finely and consistently a blade can be used to cut this soft thick tissue and for practical reasons, larger 'bites' are often required. Hence one can have rectangular grafts containing 5 and up to 8 hairs per graft. These are in fact not micrografts, but MINIGRAFTS. 

In traditional procedures, these rectangular grafts are placed into the recipient bald area as follows: the surgeon either punches holes into the skin, cuts slits, or drills out holes. The rectangular grafts are then inserted into these holes or slits.

The graft hair usually falls out and takes approximately two to three months to reappear. According to Dr. Woods & Dr. Campbell, they believe the reasons for that is because:

"Traumatic surgery causes FOLLICLE AND SCALP SHOCK

The blood supply in the recipient bald area needs to nourish and fight through excess tissue surrounding the follicle (ie. Fat, dermis and skin) before it can get to the follicle itself. By the time it gets there, the hair can fall out and sometimes the follicle itself dies.

When a very large number of punctures are made into the scalp there can be Intrusion upon and demise of pre-existing hair. Hence the common complaint of, "after my transplant operation a lot of my natural hair has fallen out around the graft, making the graft stand out." Some of this loss would have occurred anyway but trauma to the scalp through excessive large hole punching or slits (scalp shock) is also responsible. Repeat sessions need to be usually 3 to 6 months apart."