Dermatologist and hair transplant surgery specialist Sanusi Umar, MD, has introduced a novel follicular unit extraction device that responds to changing skin firmness and thickness and minimizes the challenges of extracting hair of different textures and angles.
The Dr.UGraft Zeus was designed to self-navigate the subsurface course of hair follicles, to which the FUE practitioner is typically blinded, allowing for extraction of follicles in varying FUE situations including Afro-textured hair, body hair and non-shaven long hair.
Related: Finetune Your (Transplant) Technique
A recent paper, published by Dr. Umar and his colleagues in the Clinical Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology Journal, demonstrated success of the device in a variety of FUE scenarios without requiring specialized provider skills.
Related: Newsmakers: HairMetrix
In addition to responding to variations in skin firmness, the single punch design FUE device was able to perform FUE on body hair, Afro-textured hair and long hair. Dr. Umar notes that utilizing body hair expands the donor pool and hair supply available for transplantation, thereby restoring even the most severely bald individuals.
Related: Regenerative Medicine in Hair Loss
“When I got into the hair transplant field, FUE in Afro-textured hair (such as my own) was considered the most challenging FUE scenario. Dreaded by FUE practitioners, all existing tools typically fail to deliver results in this demographic consistently,” said Dr. Umar. “So I set out looking for a solution to this most difficult FUE challenge. It led to a different way of looking at FUE altogether, resulting in the creation of a single device that can perform all types of FUE: the Dr.UGraft Zeus.”
The study describes several patented and patent-pending inventions that led to the development of an “Intelligent Punch,” and its driver called the Zeus, which marks a paradigm shift that gave critical importance to skin thickness and firmness as a primary cause of inconsistent performance by prior FUE tools. The device intuitively auto navigates changing skin textures and the curly course of hair follicles into their subsurface paths.