The implications are enormous and it now means that using techniques like the Woods technique and FUE, doctors can make use of a tremendous amount of available body hair for transplantation into the scalp, and that this body hair will grow significantly longer and can appear similar to scalp hair.

The most likely explanation for this is that the transplanted follicle's growth cycles are synchronized by the surrounding follicles or by cells in the skin which control the growth cycle and rate of hair production.

This exciting discovery rivals the discovery of donor dominance that Dr. Norman Orentreich revealed in the 1950s and provides patients with a tremendous new supply of donor hair previously thought to be unusable.

The patient measuring his body hair which has now grown to over 6 inches in length

Dermatol Surg 2002 Sep;28(9):795-9

Does the recipient site influence the hair growth characteristics in hair transplantation?

Hwang S, Kim JC, Ryu HS, Cha YC, Lee SJ, Na GY, Kim do W.

Departments of Dermatology and Immunology, Kyungpook National University School of Medicine, Taegu, Korea.

BACKGROUND: Recently hair transplantation has been widely applied not only to correct androgenetic alopecia, but also to correct hair loss on other parts of the body such as the eyebrows and pubic area. It is believed that the transplanted hairs will maintain their integrity and characteristics after transplantation to new nonscalp sites.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether the transplanted hairs maintain their hair growth characteristics after transplantation to a new anatomic site other than the scalp.

METHODS: Three study designs were used.

• Study I: Hair transplantation from the author's occipital scalp to his lower leg was performed and clinical evaluations were made at both 6 months and at 3 years after the transplantation.
• Study II: After finding changes in hair growth characteristics, transplanted hairs were harvested from the leg and retransplanted to the left side of the nape of the neck (group A). As a control study, occipital hairs were transplanted to the opposite side (group B). Observations were made at 6 months after the operation.
• Study III: An observational study was done in 12 patients with androgenetic alopecia about 1 year after transplantation of occipital hair to frontal scalp. At each step, survival rates were documented and the rate of growth and the diameter of the shafts were measured for both recipient and donor sites.

RESULTS:

• Study I: Surviving hairs on the lower leg showed a lower growth rate (8.2 +/- 0.9 mm/month), but the same diameter (0.086 +/- 0.018 mm) compared with occipital hairs (16.0 +/- 1.1 mm/month, 0.088 +/- 0.016 mm). The survival rate 3 years after transplantation was 60.2%.
• Study II: There was no significant difference in the growth rate, shaft diameter, and survival rate between retransplanted hairs (group A) and controls (group B). Groups A and B showed a lower growth rate, but the same diameter, compared with occipital hairs.
• Study III: There was no significant difference in the growth rate and shaft diameter between the transplanted hairs on the frontal scalp and the occipital hairs.

CONCLUSION: These results strongly suggest that the recipient site affects some characteristics of transplanted hairs, such as their growth and survival rates.