Pubic Hair Restorative Surgery Using Grafts Harvested by the Nonshaven Follicular Unit Extraction Technique.

[BACKGROUND] Pubic atrichosis or hypotrichosis is quite common among Korean women. Although Korean people are increasingly opening up to Western culture, pubic hair transplantation is still pursued for cultural reasons. However, many hesitate to undergo restorative surgery because follicular unit strip surgery would leave a linear donor scar, preventing patients from hiding their surgical history. Thus, follicle harvesting using nonshaven follicular unit extraction (NS-FUE), aside from many other strengths, is very useful when performing pubic restorative surgery. There has been no previous report concerning the effectiveness of NS-FUE for treating pubic atrichosis or hypotrichosis.

[OBJECTIVE] To investigate the effectiveness of NS-FUE when performing pubic restorative surgery.

[MATERIALS AND METHODS] The 50 patients who were included in the study underwent pubic hair restoration using NS-FUE between March 2014 and June 2016 at Dana Plastic Surgery Clinic (Seoul, Korea), and were followed for at least 10 months afterward. Patients and the surgeon completed a survey about donor and recipient site surgical results using a 5-point Likert scale.

[RESULTS] The average satisfaction scores of patients and surgeon were 4.5 and 4.6, respectively.

[CONCLUSION] Nonshaven follicular unit extraction is one of the most effective harvesting methods when performing restorative surgery for patients with pubic atrichosis or hypotrichosis.