MEGA session - 5000 ARTAS FUE- ONE DAY Surgery - More grafts than STRIP

Hair Transplant
1

Hi Everyone:

I just wanted to present a case we did this past weekend. Dr. G extracted and planted 5000 FUE in one day for a patient who would only have been able to achieve around 3000-3300 grafts off of STRIP.

The patient spent only 25,000 CAD (we charge 5 dollars/graft above 4000 grafts) and the surgery ran 21 hours.

This patient, after a lot of discussion, wished to go with FUE over STRIP, due to the fact that he would not have been able to get the amount of grafts he needed to cover the entire area in one pass VIA STRIP.

This is a major step forward in FUE and Hair Transplants. The ARTAS is fantastic simply because it does not tire and can extract these large numbers of grafts in one day. These true FUE mega sessions allows the patient to not have to wait 1 year between surgeries (STRIP) or several months for another FUE surgery to fill up an entire area. Not to mention having to do the surgery over 3 or 4 days in a row with manual FUE. It keeps staff fatigue low and allows us to do these size sessions daily. We are routinely doing 3500 -4000 grafts on NW6 patients now and the scarring is a non issue - even with the 1mm punch. I will grab photos on some of our more severe hair loss patients to show as they arise. We started very conservatively - 1000 grafts cases, then 1500, 2000 etc to ensure that the scarring would not be an issue. We have been pleasantly surprised at the

The MOST important factor is that doing such a large session in one day keeps our overhead lower so we can offer FUE at a very reasonable price point for such a large number of grafts. Our goal is to make TRUE mega sessions affordable and offer them routinely.

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Wow that looks painful, but worth it for all those grafts. Are Artas still currently developing their robot. It would be great if the robot could somehow be modified to incorperate donor regen if we find out later that hair transection is needed for that process.

Great to hear more mega sessions are being performed, cost is such an important issue to many buyers there are only so many people willing to drop tens of thousands on a HT. Hopefully as more clinic get used to placing more graft per session this will help to drive down costs.

3

Good to see bigger FUE sessions, but I’m wondering about the punch. What is the outside diameter used here? It looks on the larger size. Is it 1mm?

4

I would also like to know the punch size used here. On the website of restoration robotics it stated 1.4m punch last time i looked.

ejj

5

In my opinion:
This is a great example of when a strip procedure can be a far better option for a patient in the hands of a capable surgeon.

I work at Dr. Cole’s office and have never seen a post-op donor area like this! The donor pic is blurry, but the extraction sites look huge and way out of the safe donor range.

Dr. Cole has performed over 8,000 strip hair transplant procedures and gradually moved to his proprietary method of FUE beginning in 2002. He currently uses a .85 punch in many cases when possible to safely score grafts. ACell is nearly always used in the donor sites because it helps healing and can reduce white dotting called hypopigmentation.

I hope this patient gets great growth, and a free option is made available to him to address the possibility of donor area scarring. If necessary, I suggest beard hair grafted into the extraction sites. The Artas is a great idea, but I don’t believe the technology can yet come close to compete with the hands of a skilled FUE surgeon like Dr. Cole.

CITNews and works at Dr. Cole’s office

Cole Hair Transplant
1045 Powers Place
Alpharetta, Georgia 30009
Phone 678-566-1011
email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com

I am not a doctor and the content of my posts are my opinions, not medical advice.
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

6

Just because you can do something does not mean that you should do it.

I think this is a great example of a new technology that has allowed a physician to make a very bad decision regarding this patient. First, the donor area in the middle of the occipital scalp has been harvested almost to the level of the crown loss. This might not be so bad if there were no loss in the crown area, but since you have grafted this area, it is obvious that there is some loss in the crown. What this all implies is that you have harvested outside the safe donor area. It seems fairly clear that if you did not have the technology, you would not have made this mistake with this patient.

Second, the wound size with the Artas is much larger than it needs to be. The outside diameter of the dull punch is greater than 1.7 mm and the holes appear much larger than the 1.2 mm reported inside diameter. Studies have shown that the average “missed graft” rate with the Artas is 26%. What this means is that on average, if you harvest 1000 grafts, you will remove only 740 grafts. The other attempts at harvesting are simply lost in space. These are either unnecessary wounding or completely transected grafts. Either way, it’s not good.

Finally, I’ve done enough FUE procedures to state affirmatively that you have not harvested or placed 5000 FUE grafts in this patient. Even though you harvested well outside the safe donor zone, you have not extracted grafts in a tight enough pattern to harvest 4000 grafts, much less 5000 grafts. You also have not placed enough grafts to equal 5000 placed grafts. Think about this. In order to harvest 5000 grafts, you would have needed to make over 6000 attempts to harvest. You simply don’t have enough donor area to do something like this. You just made up a number and hoped it would bring you tons of business.

There are so many better ways to do FUE than the Artas and so many more knowledgeable FUE physicians out there that can give you a good result without the risks associated with this procedure. Bad technology such as the Artas in the hands of a physician lacking proper training in FUE is a formula for potential disaster. You and your patients are going to get into serious trouble if you keep making mistakes like this. You better go get yourself some training before you attempt to market bad surgery decisions.

7

Hi Cit News: :slight_smile: I’ve highlighted what you wrote in red

This is a great example of when a strip procedure can be a far better option for a patient in the hands of a capable surgeon.

Just to let you know that we have performed around 6000 hair transplants and routinely do mega sessions above 4000 grafts via STRIP (I think you may want to look at the pedigree of the clinic when talking about ability :D) - Please see our video here → http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yORkaZXZFgk

I am not a fan of opinions. I am a fan of RESULTS.

I work at Dr. Cole’s office and have never seen a post-op donor area like this! The donor pic is blurry, but the extraction sites look huge and way out of the safe donor range.

Luckily! I have HD Video of his donor which I can post :smiley:

Dr. Cole has performed over 8,000 strip hair transplant procedures and gradually moved to his proprietary method of FUE beginning in 2002. He currently uses a .85 punch in many cases when possible to safely score grafts. ACell is nearly always used in the donor sites because it helps healing and can reduce white dotting called hypopigmentation.

This patient is near 60 years old and has no signs of miniaturization in the areas we took. He is fully aware of what he have done and in regards to the safety zone. I will also say very bluntly - and you know this so don’t play pretend here - that many of the top doctors (I wont name names) go outside of the safety zone with STRIP surgeries.

You also suggest that a 1mm punch causes scarring and then go on to say we should BHT beard hair into these scars? Are you suggesting that the ARTAS requires repair work? What photos/videos do you have to even come close to suggesting such a statement? Where is your proof? I have hundreds of FUE cases that show the minimal scarring. Luckily I have a great video I made of our patient - who just so happend to have one here with a shaved head using a straight razor - with a 1mm punch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8qeBmJAJ8I

I like to pay attention to what a consumer wants - he understands, and is an engineer and his wife a doctor - that the survival rate was 92% on average, has seen many of our patients before and after and was OVER THE MOON with the thought that he could do this all in one day.

Reality is also: I have yet to have ONE patient come back and be less than over the moon by how great their donour looks. You said it at the top - in your opinion - however, you are right - it is an opinion without fact, video and proof. There are a lot of new people on here who look to these sites and have no idea what is true and not. If you want to disprove something, put out photos, before and after photos and let people decide for themselves.

We have had amazing reviews, mind blowing results, not one complaint from over 6000 patients and continue to do so. That’s reality and I have the photo’s and videos to prove it.

If you want to have this discussion - I am happy to; however, I we can just continue with the discussion that in my opinion is much more realistic:

http://www.hairsite.com/hair-loss/board_entry-id-114196.html

If necessary, I suggest beard hair grafted into the extraction sites. The Artas is a great idea, but I don’t believe the technology can yet come close to compete with the hands of a skilled FUE surgeon like Dr. Cole.

Considering we have done 6000 hair transplants and have yet to have any negative reviews or complaints I do not even think I need to explain to the readers the motive of the above statement suggesting this will need to be repaired :slight_smile:

CITNews and works at Dr. Cole’s office

8

Dr cole:

I have much respect for you; however, I can assure you we extracted 5000 grafts. The ARTAS has a counter and we did indeed extract 5000 grafts.

Let results speak for themselves.

9

Dr Cole: to suggest that we would lie about how many grafts we extracted is ridiculous. I have posted photos, with proof. We indeed extracted 5000 grafts from this patient. As mentioned there is a counter on the ARTAS. This is reality. Not a joke, game or subjective to anything other than a number that is counted.

10

Bruno bald:

The hope by doing these high numbers is to bring down cost and ensure high quality and make this type of procedure available to more people at an affordable cost. That’s the goal.

The actualy punch with extracts the grafts is 1mm from the ARTAS.

11

I hadn’t considered that one day I would be defending strip procedures since we are an FUE-only clinic. The donor looks brutal. How could this ever be superior to an average strip procedure result? Sure we see some wide scars, come through our clinic from other doctors but if it were me, I would take my chances with one of the current strip masters rather than have my donor area look like that.

Please post more photos. The donor shot was out of focus.

CITNews works at Dr. Cole’s office

Cole Hair Transplant
1045 Powers Place
Alpharetta, Georgia 30009
Phone 678-566-1011
email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com
I am not a doctor and the content of my posts are my opinions, not medical advice.
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

12

Age is a very important piece of information. At 60 years old, it’s is hard to say that you went out of the safe donor area. You certainly went out of the “traditional” safe donor area, but I don’t think there are any absolutes in terms of the safe donor area.

there is a counter on the ARtas, but it has never matched the number of grafts removed. The counter is the number of attempts. I have never heard the company disclose the difference between the number of attempts and the number of grafts removed, but they have never been equal. The attempts is always greater than the number of extracted grafts. The difference is the number of missing grafts.

Good luck.

13

I hadn’t considered that one day I would be defending strip procedures since we are an FUE-only clinic. The donor looks brutal. How could this ever be superior to an average strip procedure result? Sure we see some wide scars, come through our clinic from other doctors but if it were me, I would take my chances with one of the current strip masters rather than have my donor area look like that.

I don’t even know how to address the above. Take a look at the video I posted here regarding scarring - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8qeBmJAJ8I

These photos are the day of surgery. I don’t understand how you can just willingly give an opinion without any fact. I think it’s quite obvious the motives here. Here is a patient 3500 graft FUE immediately post op and 10 days post op - done with the ARTAS: This is reality. Real photos and not an opinion. I’m sorry but this donor looks AMAZING at only 10 days. I took all of these photos myself. Are you now going to say that this is a different person? Or that it is more than 10 days? This is REAL. REALITY, WITH PROOF. Sorry - but there is not ONE STRIP clinic - including us - that can extract 3500 grafts via FUT and have the donor look this good even 1 year later with hair this short.

Please - before posting your “opinion” try to support it with fact - i.e. video, photo and content. An opinion is just that - not fact.

Just because no one has done this size sessions, with this type of work does not make it wrong or bad. It’s just bashing something new. Just like FUE was bashed when it first came out as inferior to STRIP. Or how when STRIP mega sessions went from 2000 grafts and suddenly 5000 grafts were being done out of nowhere everyone bashed it. The reality is that THIS WORKS, it’s amazing what can be done and the bashing of something new is simply hair loss history repeating itself.

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:wink:

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Dr Cole. I am a repair patient from a horrible STRIP surgery over 12 year ago. I have looked at almost every one of your photos, posts and videos in my early years before going into transplants. I respect your work and ethics and your information along with many others helped me learn the difference between good vs bad clinics. I do want to thank you for that. However, I believe in letting work, photos and videos do the talking. That is the one thing I have learned from these boards over the past 10 years.

I understand you have a difference of opinion. But we are being very bold in showing the work - without the results coming in because we are fully behind the ability of this ROBOT. I do not think any clinic will be posting the amount of photos I will post. So please try to keep an open mind, wait for results to come in and let the results speak for themself. We are finding the average survival rate on MOST patients above 92-94%. That is a real number. I am in surgery, watching, looking and counting. There have been some cases below 90% survival rate but I would guess less than 10% of our patients were in the 10-15% transection rate and I recall Dr. Feller saying even the best FUE doctors have bad FUE cases - it is what it is. We have to date had 2 people with VERY POOR transection rates and we stopped surgery because we did not want to due damage. These were both patients with very coarse and dark hair. We do not do unethical things, want most definitely have no need to “make false claims” to bring in money - we are beyond busy. We’re simply pushing the envelope one step at a time in a safe way and showing that work to the public. I am EXTREMELY proud of what I see and the work and I am truly blown away that a 1mm punch is looking so amazing in the donor. I really am.

Let the work speak for itself.

16

LOL @joe - hope the west coast is warmer than in Toronto :slight_smile:

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Dude, you are not pushing the envelope. There is nothing you have suggested that has not been done or attempted before except you are pushing a bad piece of equipment to the brink of insanity. You have no results, yet you are claiming to do over 3000 grafts. You honestly believe you are the first person to exceed 4000 FUE grafts? Again, just because you can do something, does not mean you should do it.

Let me clue you in on a few things. First, i know the donor area. I know it a ton better than you do. I know what a donor area looks like when you harvest over 3000 grafts. I know how tight the extractions have to be. I know that you are far to well spaced apart to reach that target number. You are harvesting well outside the mid-occipital donor area with a bludgeon punch. You are nothing short of a disaster in the making.

18

Let’s let the results speak for themselves :slight_smile:

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We see on average, four severe strip scars per week come through our clinic from various doctors worldwide. I don’t see any entertainment value here.

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CITNews and works at Dr. Cole’s office

Cole Hair Transplant
1045 Powers Place
Alpharetta, Georgia 30009
Phone 678-566-1011
I am not a doctor and the content of my posts are my opinions, not medical advice.
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

20

You are comparing that scar to this guy 10 days post?? I think it’s obvious the difference between a butcher STRIP job and these two results of the donor.

Video of FUE - 1mm punch scarring shaved head http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8qeBmJAJ8I

10 days post 3500 grafts -

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Not sure how this proves poor donor healing from ARTAS FUE - but I agree that’s a brutal scar :slight_smile: