Dr Ray Woods	Dr Angela Campbell

Dr Ray Woods and Dr Angela Campbell of Sydney Australia, have pushed the envelope in hair transplantation with their Woods Technique of Follicular Relocation™.

Their microsurgical technique allows them to remove individual hair follicles from tiny 1mm slits without using scalpels or requiring any removal of surrounding tissue.

Now they have pushed the envelope yet again by being the first to perfect the chest to head hair transplant.

Dr Woods and Campbell have now demonstrated the possibilities of their technique by utilizing a patient's chest hair in a unique procedure, which is believed to be the first successful use of chest hair in hair transplantation. While it has been attempted in the past using the strip harvesting method, the amounts of hair removed and the resulting scar have made it an unusable and impractical procedure.

The patient had previously received 5 large punch graft hair transplants. The first session was 17 years ago and the last was 7 years ago. He also underwent approximately 6000 artificial fiber insertions over an 8-year period. This fiber had since fallen out. The back of his head, that is the donor site, was severely scarred and depleted. Strip excision surgery was not possible due to the area being severely thinned out, inelastic and scarred.

Dr Woods and Campbell operated on the 60 year old patient in December 2000. According to Dr Woods his frontal hairline was sparse and rimmed by a deep, white uneven scar from previous hair transplant surgery and artificial fiber insertion (Nido), which had created severe infections and scalp damage. The rest of his scalp was either bald or had a scattering of large punch grafts which gave a very sparse, uneven and unnatural appearance.