Debunking HASCI´s regeneration claim - an open letter.

[crafter]

I totally agree. It's damn easy to prove for them. Yet in all those 10 years they haven't shown us any proof, except some paper they released, which nobody could ever verify, cause nobody has access to their 'secret preservation medium' which supposedly is needed to get to the regeneration part. Therefore it makes a lot of sense that you're right and no regeneration is happening at all.

Still, HASCI is the only company that offers scarless surgery, together with Dr Wesley. I just wish they were honest about that regeneration part. People would come to their clinic anyway, no need to seduce them with these unfunded claims.

What about Dr Wesley's pilofocus? the photo does appear to show some new hair.

[Arashi]

What about Dr Wesley's pilofocus? the photo does appear to show some new hair.

I don't know about that. At least he's not making bald claims. So let's see what he comes up with in 2014. I'm not getting my hopes up too much ... But who knows, your guess is as good as mine.

[gc83uk]

My view is this: After having 5000 HST grafts over 4 procedures I feel I'm more than qualified to chime in here, I'm confident there is some multiplication, but I haven't had 85% that's for sure. It's only 85% if you're counting regrowing hairs from failed extractions and if you're counting 1 hair regrowing when it was originally 2 hairs.

I would estimate that 1/3 of all extractions are failed extractions. It's also likely that each patient will differ, you might be lucky and only have 10% failed extractions. Gho's paper documented as much, I seem to remember 1 patient having 31% failed extractions with another having less than 10% (without checking for sure) also depending on which technician is operating on you will undoubtedly skew the results, it seems the techinician, 'Rolf', is the most consistent and gives the lowest amount of failed extractions.

As for some hairs growing in the donor as 1 hair when it should be 2 hairs, this figure is around 34% of all extractions.

I'll keep it simple:
Extract 100 x 2FU's from donor (equal to 200 hairs)
85 of 100 FU's show complete or partial regrowth (This is where the 85% figure always comes from)
34 out of 100 show partial regrowth
51 out of 100 show complete regrowth

Also take into account 33 grafts of the 100 are failed extractions and grow back complete!
This reduces the genuine regrowth sample from 100 to 67 FU's, we should just ignore those 33 failed!.

Of these 67 FU's I believe 18 grow back perfectly and 34 grow back partially (1 hair instead of 2)
If we call these 34 partial FU's the equivalent to 17 complete FU's

The complete regrowth (18) + the partial regrowth (17) gives 35 grafts growing back complete out of 67 FU's.

This is just my assessment, but having analysed more than 1 area, the figures are fairly consistent, giving regrowth of 52%

If you include the failed extractions then you get a regrowth of 68%, but you can't call that genuine regrowth so for me the figure is 52%.

Even the harshest of critics such as Arashi will agree there is an element of regrowth in the donor, but he like many others will claim that the recipient result is less than that of a traditional FUE. And for that reason makes the regrowth in the donor area almost wasted because of the sub-par recipient results. That is partially correct.

The recipient in my case yields about 1.4 hairs per graft. I have studied various traditional FUE results on TBT which shows the breakdown of the grafts between 1.7 to 2.2 hairs per grafts, I didn't find anything lower or higher than these, but I accept they probably do exist if I did a larger sample analysis. So it's clear that at least in my case the 1.4 hairs per graft is much less than 1.7 - 2.2 that FUE can yield. When comparing FUE results I used an average hairs per graft to be around 1.9.

This would mean HST of 140 hairs vs 190 hairs with FUE. Not great for HST! That's about 25% less hair than what I could have achieve with FUE going in to my recipient.

That's not the end of it though. It's been discussed to death over the years the fact that FUT recipient usually yields better than FUE. FUT around 95% and FUE being around 80-85% would not be uncommon according to what I've read on TBT and quoted comments from certain Dr's all over the internet. I'm not sure what to make of that, however I recently heard Mwamba say that FUE can yield as low as 80% which did surprise me.

On the contrary, HST seems to yield approx 95% recipient regrowth, possibly more. Arashi who had HST had around 97% so he says, so this slightly makes up for the poorer average number of hairs per graft you could say!

It's difficult to put a % on how much less hair you will receive in the recipient with a HST over a traditional FUE, but if we assume FUE is 85% with 1.9 hairs per graft and HST is 97% with 1.4 hairs per graft then FUE will yield 161 hairs vs 135 hairs for HST when using the same 100 graft sample. That's 17% less for HST, slightly better than the original 25% just calculated.

I know all these figures cannot be backed up scientifically, it's just my opinion and I do wish Hasci would demonstrate it for all to see in a 50 graft test, but unfortunately it does seem like that ship sailed long ago!

What I'm seeing is 52% donor regrowth and 17% less recipient growth than what I could get with FUE.

I suppose it all comes down to have I got more hair than what I started with, (NET gain). Using the above figures 52% donor regrowth of 100 grafts (2 hairs per graft) gives 104 hairs from the original 200 regrowing in my donor.
And as mentioned above 135 hairs in the recipient, giving a total number of hairs for HST of 239 hairs from a starting point of 200 hairs. NET gain of 39 hairs.

FUE on the other hand just like FUT will always give you a NET loss of hair on your head, even though you're only moving hair from A to B. If we extract 100 FU's from the donor (190 hairs) we are of course -190 hairs in the donor with 161 hairs growing in the recipient, giving a NET loss of hair 29 hairs.

So when you compare FUE with HST with the above example you will have 68 extra hairs on your head per every 100 grafts extracted with HST than if you've had chosen FUE.

Forgive me if I've got any of the figures wrong above, I'm simply trying to demonstrate that there is some regrowth at least in my case, but definitely not 85% unfortunately.

Mwamba and Cole can also get regeneration of sorts so they say, so I don't think the theory of regrowth should be unbelievable, I actually think it's a reality and it's only going to get better. It's clear for everyone to see Gho has successfully achieved scarless hair transplants, something which wan't a reality just a few years ago, so that alone is progress.

[crafter]

I don't know about that. At least he's not making bald claims. So let's see what he comes up with in 2014. I'm not getting my hopes up too much ... But who knows, your guess is as good as mine.

I studied horticulture at college and there's so many things you can do with plants, like take cuttings, grafting etc. Yet it seems no one has managed to make some extra hairs grown on a scalp. It's just bizarre

[hellouser]

What I'm seeing is 52% donor regrowth and 17% less recipient growth than what I could get with FUE.

That and the fact that its scarless is still fantastic.

[Arashi]

Gaz, thanks for your elaborate answer. I counted 2316 extraction sites and you've got 1300 grafts, so means 1016/2316 = 44% failed. How did you get your number ?

[Arashi]

That and the fact that its scarless is still fantastic.

I still think HASCI and Dr Wesley should currently be the only options for people who want to get surgery. But I wish HASCI would either back up their claims with a patient analysis or just stop making those claims. But unfortunately that will never happen.

[gc83uk]

Gaz, thanks for your elaborate answer. I counted 2316 extraction sites and you've got 1300 grafts, so means 1016/2316 = 44% failed. How did you get your number ?

I haven't counted the sample that you counted from the day 1, we're talking an 11% difference if those are consistent across both days. However I wish I had asked Rolf to do all them and not just the day 2.

It's no exaggeration to say the 'other' technician significantly increases the failed rate. However on the day 2 procedure, only 500 grafts, I counted around 700 extractions, so whats that, about 28% failed rate? That was soley Rolf who did those. From memory I think it was only Rolf who extracted on my 3rd HST which is where I was basing the other calculations on (partial growth etc)

[gc83uk]

I still think HASCI and Dr Wesley should currently be the only options for people who want to get surgery. But I wish HASCI would either back up their claims with a patient analysis or just stop making those claims. But unfortunately that will never happen.

If they would just claim, hey we can do scarless transplants with some regrowth, then they would probably get more customers coming forward.

[gc83uk]

Also if my maths are correct even if it's 44% failed extractions then it would still give 24 grafts out of 56 grafts which would mean 43% regrowth instead of the 52% regrowth.

I'd still take that to be honest, but I know for sure that Rolf ain't Failing 1 in 2 attempts.

[Arashi]

Also if my maths are correct even if it's 44% failed extractions then it would still give 24 grafts out of 56 grafts which would mean 43% regrowth instead of the 52% regrowth.

I'd still take that to be honest, but I know for sure that Rolf ain't Failing 1 in 2 attempts.

43% is fairly consitent with my 38% calc. But again, of course it's a best case scenario. We didn't look at recipient. I know in my recipient I had good growth. Maybe that was true in your case as well and you did get some regrowth. Who knows. But the major point (at least to me) remains: if they really had something that would work, they'd show patient evidence. Not just some paper that nobody can't verify. Look how many people doubt HASCI's claim. They could all just take away that doubt with some good patient cases and get tons of more patients. They don't do that, which to me means a lot.

[Arashi]

And remember those 100 graft tests they did ? Kristel told me that they'd put it all up on their site. What happened to that ? It all just seems really fishy to me. If they don't want to show any proof of their claims, one can only assume that's for a good reason.

[Arashi]

You know, I'm thinking ... I'm planning to visit my family in the Netherlands somewhere in december or february. I could still use some grafts in recipient. Maybe I'll get a really small procedure, like 300-400 grafts, that's still very managable to count (albeit a lot of work). I'll shoot tons of photo's and finally get us the evidence that we all want. Cause this discussion is going to go on for ages I'm going to think about it, but it sounds like a great idea to me. And I could use some more grafts for sure

[gc83uk]

You know, I'm thinking ... I'm planning to visit my family in the Netherlands somewhere in december or february. I could still use some grafts in recipient. Maybe I'll get a really small procedure, like 300-400 grafts, that's still very managable to count (albeit a lot of work). I'll shoot tons of photo's and finally get us the evidence that we all want. Cause this discussion is going to go on for ages I'm going to think about it, but it sounds like a great idea to me. And I could use some more grafts for sure

I think that would be a great idea, but just make sure Rolf is extracting and Gho or Deborah is implanting.

[cocacola]

Just the fact that hasci been doing scarless for a while now is a big differentiation point. Then, for me gaz case is more believable evidence of regen than any studies they published. Myself i only had one and cant tell anything about regen or lack of.