Q: I went to a hair transplant doctor for a consultation for my hair loss and he said that it was not that important to use microscopes for hair transplants. I had heard that it was. What’s the deal? — V.F., Hell’s Kitchen, N.Y.

A: It is extremely important to use microscopes when performing hair transplants. It is the only way that follicular units, the naturally occurring groups of hair follicles, can be isolated from the donor tissue without damaging them.

Other techniques, such as magnifying loops and back-lighting are not as precise. Using microscopically dissected follicular units in hair transplants has been the main advance that has allowed doctors to move away from the older mini-micrografting hair restoration techniques to the current procedure that can produce totally natural results.

See the Graft Dissection page.