Dr. Eric J. Stelnicki, M.D. specializes and has received advanced training in hair transplantation. He is skilled in Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT), Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) and utilizes a variety of methods in nonsurgical hair restoration. Dr. Stelnicki transplants hair for male and female pattern baldness, and also performs this surgical procedure on children. This includes restoration of the scalp or facial hair in the reconstruction of the cleft lip, craniosynostosis, burns and post-traumatic injuries.
Dr. Eric J. Stelnicki, M.D. is one of the only plastic and reconstructive surgeons in South Florida that does routine hair transplantation on children. He is also one of the leading Pediatric Plastic Surgeons at the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. Moreover, Dr. Stelnicki has gained extensive experience in hair transplantation for treatment of birth defect-related hair loss with cleft lip and palate, craniosynostosis, scar related to neurosurgery, other post-traumatic scars and also obtaining extensive experience in restoring hair in children that was lost secondary to burns.
FOLLUCULAR UNIT TRANSPLANTATION (FUT) is the latest treatment in providing full, natural looking hair. The microscopic dissection makes complete assurance that the individual follicular units aren’t damaged during the strip removal. Some of the advantages of Follicular Unit Transplantation include ensuring that each graft will be closely identical to the surrounding follicular units (after hair transplant growth, the results create a completely natural look), there is less damage to any existing hair in the recipient area, less post-operative damage, micro-grafts obtain a slight increase in growth compared to any other traditional graft types and lastly, there is no plugging (unnatural appearance of larger hair grafts) produced by the micro-grafts.
Prior to surgery, the patient’s full history and physical examination will be obtained. Then, there will be a discussion of the patient’s goals, expectations and options that are available. During the consultation, the artistic hair plan and design will begin. The design is based on problem type, area to be grafted, age of the patient, medical condition and history of prior scarring. The basic steps in most Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) procedures are hair graft harvest, graft preparation, transplantation and post-operative care.
Hair Graft Harvest
Following anesthesia, the donor area will be marked, trimmed and anesthetized. From the permanent zone, a narrow strip(s) of scalp is removed. All follicles are then separated from each other.
Follicle Graft Preparation
The carefully prepared follicular unit grafts are tiny compact structures that contain excess scalp tissue. These grafts fit into tiny incisions that product little scalp trauma. The tissue from the donor region are separated into several graft sizes under microscopic visualization. During this process, single and multi-hair grafts are created. Next, the donor strip is carefully dissected into tiny slivers under magnification of a stereoscopic microscope. The strips are segmented into follicular units. There are tiny slits created where the graft is placed. These slits are artistically oriented in a way that mimics the natural hairline and the angle of hair growth. Then the follicular unit graft is inserted into the created opening.
Post-Operative Care
The procedure generally lasts three to eight hours, which depends mostly on how much hair is needed for transplantation. After surgery, the sutures are removed after 10 days.
