Hair transplant complications, types and consequences I.

Does a hair transplant come with complications? Like any surgical procedure, a hair transplant can naturally involve undesirable complications. Although these are rare, a hair clinic must always be prepared to manage such unexpected events in accordance with professional protocol. In the first part of our article series, we list, in line with professional experience, the surgical complications most commonly associated with hair transplantation.

Hair transplant complications can be classified into the following categories:

• standard surgical risks
• medical planning errors
• medical technical errors
• patient personal factors
• patient physiological factors
• other causes during the hair transplant

In addition, we can observe some site-specific complications, including problems arising at the donor and recipient sites. Complications in the donor area are extremely varied, depending on the extraction technique.

These include, among others:

• undesirable scarring in various forms (e.g. a previous strip scar),
• depletion of the donor site,
• wound dehiscence (in the case of the strip procedure),
• necrosis,
• effluvium (shock loss),
• hypoesthesia (partial loss of sensation),
• neuralgia (pain of nerve origin),
• hematoma (bruising in various areas of the skin).

Complications of the recipient site:

• incorrect growth direction of the hair,
• incorrect position or shape of the hairline (e.g. symmetry),
• disturbance of hair growth,
• graft-type error,
• graft placement error during the hair transplant,
• hypopigmentation,
• hair color mismatch,
• chronic folliculitis,
• effluvium,
• ingrown hairs, cysts.