Gordon Ramsay: Hair Transplant Procedure Recipient

According to the London Daily Mail, celebrity chef and TV personality Gordon Ramsay had a hair transplant using a “radical new treatment” called follicular unit extraction that “leaves no scars.” Unfortunately the Daily Mail reporter apparently didn't do their homework. Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) has been a proven and widely respected hair loss transplant procedure for well over 10 years.

Follicular unit (FU) extraction is a procedure for obtaining follicular graft units from donor areas on the scalp. Follicular unit transplantation is the surgical procedure for transplanting follicular unit into the scalp.

The FU is identified as a small bundle consisting of 1 to 4 hair follicles, full-thickness as well as fine hairs, and the oil glands, muscles and connecting tissue that accompany and support hair follicles. According to the ISHRS, if you look closely at the closely-clipped scalp from above as you would look at a wheat field from an airplane, you can see that scalp hair does not grow in even distribution like wheat in a field but rather in little groups of hairs that seems to be clumped together. These little groupings of hairs are called follicular units (FUs). When the scalp is examined under a magnifying glass or microscope, these FUs look like islands. The identification, harvesting and transplanting of FUs requires the training and skill of a physician hair restoration specialist.

The extracted FU may be used intact, or may be divided into smaller units for transplantation. Single follicular units are often used to fill in a hairline, multiple FUs to provide greater density in the center of the scalp. Follicular unit transplantation is a newer surgical technique that continues the modern emphasis on achieving a “natural” look from hair transplants. It is a technique that, like micrografting, uses 1 to 4 units to achieve an even distribution of hair coverage over the scalp and avoid the “row of corn” appearance that was common many years ago.

The availability of FU transplantation expands the number of options a patient may consider for surgical hair restoration. Whether it is the best option for an individual patient depends upon the individual patient characteristics, including cause of hair loss, type of hair loss, likelihood of hair loss progression over future years, cost of procedures the patient may consider, and the patient’s wishes for the “look” that he or she wishes to achieve from hair restoration.

In the case of Chef Ramsay, one source close to him is reported to have said that "while his hair may not have been obviously receding, it had become an issue for him."