Depending on a number of critically important factors, hair transplant surgery can either be one of the best decisions you will ever make or among the worst. Today we're going to discuss the pros and cons of surgical hair restoration, euphemistically called hair plugs or transplantation. In fact, the more accurate description is "autologous hair bearing skin transplantation". This is because the actual procedure involves harvesting sections of skin from a hairy part of one's scalp (donor) and moving it to a bald area (recipient) of the same person. Skin transplantation between anyone other than genetically-identical twins does not work.

The technique of moving hair bearing skin tissue grafts from one part of the scalp to another dates back at least 50 years. In the 1950's a pioneering surgeon by the name of Dr. Norman Orentreich began to experiment with the idea on willing patients. Orentreich's groundbreaking work demonstrated a concept that became known as donor dependence, or donor identity, that is to say that hair bearing skin grafts harvested from the zone of the scalp outside the pattern of loss continued to produce viable hair even though the grafts had been relocated into areas that had previously gone bald.

During the next two decades hair 植髮 失敗 transplantation gradually evolved from a curiosity into a popular cosmetic procedure, primarily among balding men of late middle years. In the 1960's and 1970's practitioners including Dr. Emanuel Marritt in Colorado, Dr. Otar Norwood, Dr. Walter Unger showed that hair restoration could be feasible and cost effective. A standard of care was developed that, in experienced hands, allowed for reasonably consistent results.