A question that I receive several times a month is, “Can I use my friend’s hair for my hair transplant?” The answer is no. The reason for this case is that hair transplanted from another individual into your body will be treated as foreign and attacked by your immune system and ultimately rejected. This is why for liver transplants, etc., organ recipients have to be on lifelong immunosuppression so that they do not reject the new liver. This kind of immunosuppression can lead to health problems, cancer, etc. It is not without risk. The recent news about facial transplants from another individual has garnered much attention and are only justified after extensive ethical, psychological, physical, and biocompatibility parameters are fulfilled. When talking about a simple aesthetic case of hair restoration, to borrow hair from another individual would be tantamount to malpractice and risk serious problems.


Infection from Artificial Hair Shafts

An example of where people have tried something like that is the experiment in Australia were synthetic hairs have been implanted into the human scalp. Although this idea (which is illegal in the United States, thank God!) seems intuitively attractive, it has caused serious health problems in many of the individuals who have undergone this procedure. Serious infections, rejection, and skin problems have plagued these individuals and the cure is not at all that easy. Removing thousands of these strands have led to problems in the skin and skull and 100% removal of them has still not been successful in many cases. This is a long answer to why transplantation of hair from another individual is dangerous, unethical, and illegal.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS is a board certified hair transplant surgeon in Dallas, Texas. To learn more about Dr Lam’s hair transplant procedures please visit our website hairtx.com or call 972-312-8105 to schedule a consultation.