Hair transplant procedures are being
successfully used here in Western Australia to assist patients who
have lost their eyebrows as a result of an accident, medical
condition or psychological trauma.
The hair restoration technique is also
being used to successfully conceal and heal scarring in the eyebrow
area.
Eyebrow transplants have been around
since the 1940s, however the use of more refined surgical techniques
over the past 15 years is allowing physicians to recreate the
appearance of a more natural looking brow.
The new eyebrows are created by
harvesting hair follicles from the back of the scalp and then
replanting them into the eyebrow area.
The use of single hairs enables the
physician to meticulously follow the eyebrow contour to recreate the
appearance of natural eyebrows.
Perth-based physician Dr Jennifer Martinick has successfully performed eyebrow transplants for 20
patients at her Nedlands clinic.
Dr Martinick said the procedure had
been used for patients who had either lost their eyebrows or needed
to conceal scarring from burns, explosions or plastic surgery.
In providing an example, she referred
to how the procedure had been used to heal and conceal the scars a
woman incurred from previous surgery.
Dr Martinick said the patient, who was
referred to her by a West-Perth based plastic surgeon, had 4 mm wide
and 2 mm pitted concave scars in her eyebrow area.
She said over 500 follicles were
transplanted from the back of the patient’s head to create youthful
thick eyebrows.
Like most patients, she required only
mild sedation and a local anaesthetic during the three-hour
procedure.
Dr Martinick said recovery time after
the eyebrow transplant procedure was relatively quick with it only
taking two to three days for the swelling to go down.
It usually took around three to four
months after the procedure before the new eyebrows started to enter
their anagen (growth) phase.
The full effect of the replanted
eyebrows was usually evident after 9 to 12 months.
Dr Martinick said people who had the
procedure would need to regularly trim their eyebrows because the
replanted hairs grew at a much faster rate than natural brows.
“Eyebrow hair usually only grows at
half the rate of scalp hair which has a growth cycle of around .30 mm
- .41 mm per day,” Dr Martinick said.
“However, the transplanted eyebrows
grow at the same rate of natural hair and will require fortnightly
trimming.
“The anagen phase of the new brows
usually begins at around 9 to 12 months after the transplant and
regular trimming is needed after this.
“Reports from the international
medical authority on hair loss, the International Society for Hair
Restoration Surgery (ISHRS), show that the rapid growth phase of the
transplanted brows usually slows down after a few years, thereby
requiring less regular trimming.”
Dr Martinick said that like all forms
of hair loss a medical diagnosis should be sought before a patient
committed to an eyebrow transplant.
Eyebrow loss in men and women could be
due to an accident, systemic disease, a congenital inability to grow
eyebrows or the self-inflicted plucking disorder trichotillomania.
