African American Hair Transplants - Is ARTAS The Best Choice?

IAHRS accepted member Dr. Craig Ziering discusses his view on the superiority of the ARTAS robotic hair transplant system when transplanting afrocentric hair, which is considered the most difficult type of hair to safely dissect and extract using the FUE method.

Those are really interesting points. I’ve read that it is almost impossible to do FUE on black people’s hair or even curly hair on white people without causing a lot damage. You never read that European doctors turn away black people on the forums, that’s very important information. If the robot can solve this major technical problem, extracting straighter hair perfectly must be a breeze. Great and informative interview as always. Thank you!

I agree we have a lot of experience with the ARTAS hair transplant in African American patients and had great results.

On last night’s radio show Spencer and Joe Tillman were talking about the Artas. Spencer asked Joe for his objective opinion and Joe said that he does not think even an expert could tell the difference in donor holes made by the new Artas and manual punches. Spencer said that it’s the future and that it just needed to be refined from it’s original design. Joe Tillman seems to agree. It was a very eye opening discussion. I wonder why more doctors aren't using it. Is it the cost or are there other reasons that we don't know about?

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Originally Posted by PayDay

On last night’s radio show Spencer and Joe Tillman were talking about the Artas. Spencer asked Joe for his objective opinion and Joe said that he does not think even an expert could tell the difference in donor holes made by the new Artas and manual punches. Spencer said that it’s the future and that it just needed to be refined from it’s original design. Joe Tillman seems to agree. It was a very eye opening discussion. I wonder why more doctors aren't using it. Is it the cost or are there other reasons that we don't know about?

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I don't know much about ht's but last I heard about artas was that it required larger punch sizes compared to manual fue, has this been resolved/refined now?

HI JohnMPB,

ARTAS comes in both 1mm and 0.9mm size. We released the 0.9 a long time ago. Also, smaller doesn't mean better. While the incision in your donor area may appear smaller the next day, 2 weeks out of the surgery it won't really make a difference. Also, your grafts will have less tissue thus they will be more delicate to handle.

Additionally, while there is so much buzz around smaller and smaller needles. There are still many out there who go up in size when the need arises beyond 1mm

Thanks for the reply. I take it there are no plans to release smaller punch sizes then?

Also, for African American hair, or people with more coarse/thick/curly hair, are larger punch sizes used to prevent issues like transection?

Wow this is all very interesting. Thanks for the detailed pics Dr. Zeiring.

Sorry to the mods if this is off topic or not allowed but do you charge for consults Dr. Ziering? I live near your Newport Beach location and would like to visit to talk about FUE and medical treatments for myself.

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Originally Posted by JohnMPB

Thanks for the reply. I take it there are no plans to release smaller punch sizes then?

Also, for African American hair, or people with more coarse/thick/curly hair, are larger punch sizes used to prevent issues like transection?

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we will be releasing a 0.8mm by the end of the year. that will give our physicians 3 options: 1mm, 0.9mm (both already available) and 0.8mm

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Originally Posted by Dr. Craig Ziering

For African Americans it is not necessary to use a larger punch than the 18 g 4 prong needle ( basically 1 mm) with Artas . As long as the angle is appropriately adjusted, transection is negligible and results and healing are very satisfying to both patient and surgeon. I have over 4 years of experience with this with the Artas.
Attachment 46010 African American patient immediately after site making
Attachment 46011 Same patient day after site making

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Dr. Ziering was one of our first users and I still remember our first day of training together on the ARTAS system. Great memories. He is also very close to me when it comes to R&D. He and few others are the ones that feed the R&D team with ideas and challenges.