Despite misconceptions often made by patient members of our popular hair loss forum, FUT and FUE aren’t opposing hair transplant procedures. FUT stands for Follicular Unit Hair Transplantation which is today’s gold standard hair procedure. Follicular units are hair groupings as they occur naturally in the scalp typically containing 1, 2, 3 and 4 hairs. FUT has replaced “mini-grafting” (more than one follicular unit typically in groups of 2 to 8 hairs) as the dominant surgical hair restoration procedure in the late 1990s.

Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) and Strip Excision are two distinct sub-types of FUT that deal with how follicular unit grafts are harvested from the donor area. Both donor harvesting methods produce follicular units and thus, fall under the larger umbrella of FUT. How follicular units are handled and the process for implanting grafts into recipient sites are practically the same (although handling and placing grafts vary depending on the clinic – ex: stick and place versus pre-made incisions, holding solutions, varying implanting devices, etc).