What is the DHI method?
DHI hair transplant technique stands for “Direct Hair Implantation”. As its name indicates, this technique consist of implanting the follicles directly without passing by channels opening step. This alternative technique causes less damage to the hair follicles, as the grafts spend less time outside the scalp. Additionally, the hair follicles are introduced individually in the receiving area in a specific angle. Which gives a completely natural look.
The procedure differs from FUE technique in the use of an instruments called Choi pen or DHI implanter. Choi Pen has a kind of hollow round scalpel with a groove at the bottom to put the graft. And at the top a button to release the hair follicles.
DHI transplant procedure
During the consultation, the surgeon will first determine the new hair line to be implanted. And that is according to the patient’s preferences and the forehead muscles position.
To start, the patient will receive local anesthesia in donor area then the receiving area, to start the following steps :
- Hair extraction : The surgeon will use a special tool called micro-motor punch to extract the follicles from the donor area. This tool helps extracting the hair follicles one by one, which minimizes the damages. Hypothermasol is the solution that will serve as conservative to the follicles while preparing for implantation.
- Implanter loading (choi pen) : Generally two surgical assistants will help with this process to make it faster. This step consist of putting each graft into an implanter, through the hollow bottom to prepare it for implantation.
- Graft insertion (implanting) : The surgeon will insert the choi pen into the scalp of the receiving area, then release the graft in it and pull out the pen.
Obviously, several pens are used simultaneously in the surgery to speed up the process.
DHI Hair Transplant Benefits
- It gives more natural looking results.
- It can achieve better density than other techniques as the pen allow better control of the grafts positioning.
- Greater precision in the angle and depth of the implant improves the efficiency compared to other techniques. The survival of the grafts is around 90-95%, compared to 75-90%.
- It does not require complete hair shaving which is one of the most common requests among patients.
- No need to opening channels as the choi pen inserts directly the follicle, which takes less time.
- Not making incision makes it less invasive to the scalp and the adjacent follicles.
