The Strip procedure entails cutting a long piece of scalp out of the head and suturing the scalp together.   With an FUE hair transplant there is no invasive surgery as with the STRIP method.  With FUE each follicle from the back of the head is harvested  individually and placed in the thinning or balding areas on the top of the head.  The hair at the back of the head is genetically programmed to not fall out, unlike the hair at the top of the head.  If the patient has sufficient hair at the back of the head, then an FUE transplant is the more beneficial transplant to have. If hair is lacking at the back of the head, body hair can be considered for transplantation as well.  The patient is awake during the procedure, and can watch T.V. or talk with the doctor.  It is virtually a painless procedure aside from the few initial local injections of anesthesia which feel like pinpricks.   The NeoGraft machine is designed to help the doctor offer his patients this latest, most advanced procedure in hair transplantation.

The FUE method is the least invasive method since there is no cutting out a six inch or longer piece of scalp and suturing it together as there is with the STRIP method used by most doctors today.  With the FUE method there is little bleeding and  fewer complications. The procedure is performed with local anaesthetic and no intravenous or intra-muscular sedation is required.  There are no linear scars which can stretch out over time.  With FUE there is mostly no visible scarring allowing the hair to be worn short.  There is little chance of damaged nerve pain or damage to major blood vessels.  There are no limitations on activities for the first few weeks as with the STRIP method.  There is less chance of permanent shock fallout of the follicles as a result of the procedure, and very little recovery time. A complication sometimes seen with the STRIP surgery is a feeling the scalp is too tight from the suturing together of the scalp. 

Very few doctors offer a manual FUE method for a hair transplant.  In addition to being time consuming and therefore more costly many doctors are not willing to train in the FUE procedure , especially if they have a busy practice doing STRIP surgeries.  The result is that even though many patients are good candidates for an FUE hair transplant, if they are not seen by a doctor that specializes in FUE they may not be given advice which is in their best interest .  A doctor who does not offer full disclosure about FUE is not acting in his patient's best interest.

Many doctors try to discourage their patients from an FUE hair transplant by speaking of the transection rate of an FUE transplant but fail to point out that with a STRIP surgery hundreds of follicles are transected when a piece of scalp is cut out.  Furthermore,  follicles may be damaged when suturing the scalp together.  In addition, the scalp has to be cut into small units to be given to several technicians who will then separate the follicles to prepare them for transplantation.  All these procedures may damage the follicles depending on the skill of the technicians.  A doctor may also point out that with an FUE hair transplant the follicles have to be pulled, twisted and squeezed in order to extract them.  This information may also be an attempt to dissuade the patient from having an FUE transplant.  Generally, a capable FUE transplant doctor will be able to extract the follicles manually because most people's follicle's are resilient enough to undergo FUE transplantation.  It takes quite a lot of twisting and squeezing to damage a follicle.  There are many patients who have undergone manual FUE procedures and have had excellent results. Their testimonials are all over the internet.  The drawbacks with manual FUE as mentioned before is the time needed for the procedure and the higher cost. 

Even though most people who are candidates for a manual FUE hair transplant are not at risk for damaged follicles in the hands of an experienced doctor, there are some conditions of the scalp or hair that prevents some patients from being candidates for a manual FUE procedure.  Some patients have a very tight scalp, or a thick scalp.  Some individual’s follicles are deeper, and more firmly anchored than other people’s.  These differences may require more tugging, pulling and twisting  of the follicle by the doctor or technician who does not have the NeoGraft machine, increasing the chances of damaging the follicle.  With the NeoGraft there is no twisting, pulling and squeezing of the follicles as NeoGraft applies just the right amount of pneumatic pressure (suction) to allow for easy removal of the follicle with the least amount of handling of the follicle.  This same minimal suction moves the follicle through a very short tube to a holding reservoir. The suction is gentle enough to avoid any damage to the follicles. With the  NeoGraft machine more people are eligible to have FUE transplants because the qualities of the patients skin and hair do not affect the performance of the machine.