Q: I recently saw an episode of the Rachel Ray Show where her guest, Dr. Anthony Youn, said that the Neograft machine for Follicular Unit Extraction is painless and uses a vacuum rather than surgery to remove the grafts. Can this be true? — A.B., Old Greenwich, C.T.

A: Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) using the Neograft machine is not painless and, while it does not produce a linear scar, it is surgery and there is significant scarring in the form of thousands of tiny holes that heal with round white marks.

In the video, Dr. Anthony Youn asks: “Do you wanna take a feel? It’s just a vacuum.” Rachel Ray states: “You don’t feel a thing.” Youn replies: “No [you don’t].”

This is very deceptive on the part of the doctor, since the instrument is basically a cutting instrument with the suction being used to remove and insert the grafts. Although the suction part would not be painful, the cutting part certainly is and requires the same anesthesia as a traditional hair transplant.

Our main concern is that the machine produces grafts that are sub-optimal with respect to quality and potential growth, as the Neograft’s suction apparatus tends to strip follicles away from their surrounding protective tissue and tends to dry the grafts out.

For in-depth information on this topic, read our pages on Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) and the Neograft Machine for FUE.