Cryopreservation of hair follicles at 20 degrees C: can it work in staged hair transplantation.

Androgenic alopecia is a serious problem for a large proportion of the population, especially males, and causes them to seek medical help. Many methods have been described for treatment of androgenic alopesia. Among them are punch grafts, strip grafts, scalp grafts, scalp reductions, tissue expanders, and flap combinations, and hair transplantations with minigrafts and micrografts. The latter has become popular in the last two to three decades and has been investigated extensively. Improvements in hair replacement with minigrafts and micrografts may allow an ideal result with a nearly normal appearance. However, hair replacement with these grafts has important disadvantages. It requires a long operational time and only a limited number of grafts can be placed in one session. In this study, we investigated morphological structures of micrografts stored at 4 degrees C and those stored at -20 degrees C. We found that morphological structures of the grafts stored at 4 degrees C started to be impaired in the fifth day, but that the morphological structures of the grafts stored at -20 degrees C remained unaltered for 15 days. If this method is put into practice, the use of minigrafts and micrografts available will not only obviate the second graft harvesting, but also allow reconstruction of a large area in a short period of time.