Hair Transplants - Megasession or Conservative Approach?

[TeeJay73]

There seems to be two (opposing) schools of thought related to megasession hair transplants.

As I understand it, megasession hair transplants are those in which 2,000 or more grafts are transplanted in a single session. I have heard that even 5,000 grafts have been transplanted in a single session. (Given that an average number of hairs in a graft is 2.3 hairs, one can quickly calculate the number of hairs transplanted in a megasession.)

The conservative approach to hair transplants opposes the megasession approach in that 2,000 or fewer grafts are transplanted in a single session.

I have heard numerous pros and cons associated with each type of session.

With megasessions, pros that I have heard include: (1) fewer surgeries are required to reach the patient's goals, (2) the grafts tend to grow better, (3) increased hair density, and (4) results are very comsmetically significant. Cons I have heard include: (1) the donor area is decimated quickly, and, if results are not in line with the patient's expectations, the donor area is gone (or nearly gone), and there's nothing left to work with and (2) graft survival rate may be decreased.

With the conservative approach, pros that I have heard include: (1) sometimes patient's are very content with a single, less-than-2,000 graft session, potentially saving him/her money and scarring/trauma from surgery, (2) graft survival rate is higher than in a megasession, and (3) the donor area -- the golden jewel for any man/woman seeking a hair transplant -- is treated conservatively (not decimated so quickly, so that if there is any future hair loss, there is still donor area to work with). Cons that I have heard include: (1) numerous surgeries can be required to reach a patient's goals, which may come with increased costs, inconveniences associated with surgery, etc. (2) results can appear "spotty" because grafts may not be densely packed, and (3) results may not be cosmetically significant.

You can see that some of the pros/cons that I have heard in my own research of each method actually contradict one another.

I personally tend to prefer the conservative approach, along with my IAHRS surgeon. But I was curious: what do others think? And, is there an clean and clear answer to the question of - what is better in hair transplantation, a megasession or conservative session?

TeeJay