The Future of ARTAS® Hair Restoration

The introduction of robotic follicular unit extraction (FUE) hair transplant procedures represents a significant achievement in the field of hair restoration. Today, surgeons can perform hair transplants with greater ease and precision, delivering a better patient experience and a beautifully natural end-result. Millions of men and women suffer with hair loss worldwide; today, advanced methods of hair restoration mean those individuals no longer have to let fear, embarrassment, or anxiety take away from the enjoyment of everyday life.

Last year, our practice became one of the first 13 clinics in the United States to acquire the ARTAS® System for robotic FUE transplant. Since that time, countless men and women have experienced the comfortable, minimally invasive procedure firsthand. Today’s robotic FUE procedures are just the beginning, however. It is with great pleasure and excitement that we share more information on current ARTAS procedures, as well as a special look at what the future holds.

Today’s Robotic FUE Procedure

FUE procedures are similar in concept to traditional strip donor hair transplants. Both procedures transplant donor hair from one healthy area of the scalp to the area that is receding and/or experiencing hair loss. Unlike strip donor, however, FUE procedures use a small punch instrument to remove individual clusters of donor hair. In this way, the development of FUE marks a significant milestone in which surgeons became able to perform transplants without extracting a linear strip of donor tissue— an extraction that inevitably left a long, linear scar.

Robotic FUE now enables surgeons to extract donor hair more quickly while simultaneously reducing trauma to the scalp. Surgeons use advanced robotics and high-resolution digital imaging to guide the robotic arm to make minimally invasive extractions that preserve the healthiest donor hair for transplant. With the assistance of robotic FUE systems like the ARTAS, Dr. Paul Rose estimates that up to 1,500 grafts can be harvested in about 2 hours— half the time it takes to harvest the same number of grafts by hand.

Watch: Dr. Rose Presents ARTAS on CBS Miami

An added advantage: ARTAS selects donor hair at random to preserve the natural look of the patient’s donor areas (typically the sides and rear of the head).

The Future of ARTAS Procedures

Perhaps most exciting is the future of ARTAS procedures. Today, ARTAS is used to assist surgeons in identifying and extracting near-perfect donor hair for transplant. Following extraction, surgeons must prep and transplant donor hairs by hand, carefully inserting them into “recipient sites” on the patient’s scalp. According to Drs. Rose and Nusbaum, ARTAS may soon make that process more comfortable and efficient. In a letter to patients, the surgeons explain:

Until now, the ARTAS robotic technology was involved only in removing follicles from the donor area. ARTAS will soon, however, expand its role, as the robot capabilities have been expanded to the creation of the small openings (recipient sites) into which the donor grafts are inserted in the balding or thinning areas. The physician will design the recipient area pattern completely on a computer image of the patient, delineating the borders of the area to be transplanted and will also specify the direction and angle of the small openings which subsequently determines the direction and growth angle of the transplanted hairs. This information is inputted to the robotic system, which will make the sites avoiding existing hair. ARTAS controls the depth of each tiny opening and can create different hair densities in selected areas and can even create irregularity at the hairline for naturalness. This should allow the surgery to proceed more efficiently, yet still leaves room for that important human artistic input.