What is Hair Transplant Necrosis

Necrosis of the scalp usually occurs due to one of two reasons:

• Over-packing – Like any other surgery, an overly ambitious doctor can attempt too much change at once and cause damage as a result. In many cases, a doctor overly packs the recipient area with too many hair follicle grafts in an attempt for high-density results, which creates far too much trauma to the recipient scalp which can lead to tissue death.
• Over-packing an area can disrupt the blood flow to an isolated region of the scalp.
• This region is starved of the blood’s nourishing nutrients long enough to completely die off and become necrotic.
• Infection – If an infection over the course of a hair transplant surgery, it can be quickly treated with antibiotics. If left untreated, however, an infection can reach deep into the recipient scalp, become necrotic, and spread to a larger area.
• An unskilled surgeon can make incisions that are unnecessarily deep, which can cause infection.
• Similarly, too many incisions can cause excessive bruising, and the tissue can become necrotic as the blood pools beneath the skin.
• Once necrosis sets in, the affected scalp area must be removed via a process called debridement so it cannot spread.
• This lengthy process leaves scarring and takes months of recovery to fully heal.