Temporal Points in Hair Transplant Surgery

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This is a podcast dedicated to temporal points. A temporal point basically is the triangular shape point in the temple of hair bearing area where it makes the face stronger. And we’re usually talking about temple points for men because with women, it’s not so much a temporal point as sort of just a larger temporal extension that goes down in a curved fashion. So the point itself does exist in women, but usually when we talk about the temporal point we’re talking about for men, now, in traditionally like 20 years ago, temporal points weren’t really made. It was really just the hairline, the frontal central hairline. The problem is oftentimes if you just build a hairline and you build it aggressively forward, the hairline may be in advance of where the temple hair bearing area is and it could look like a toupee or hair system because it’s too far forward.



So it is very important that the temporal point be reconstructed in the right patient. Now, what is the right patient? You must have enough hair to actually be able to recreate the temporal point. Sometimes the trick is not so much to create a very, very thick temporal point, but a point that at least balances the frontal hairline. So whenever I’m designing a hairline, I’m always cognizant of where that temporal a hair bearing area is. Because again, if you make the hairline very aggressively forward and the temple cannot support it, then it can look fake. Now what is more conservative than a temporal point is just the upper upper temple. So sometimes you can just sort of create a little bit of the upper temple to improve the shape of the hair. Also, and people that wear hair systems or hair pieces or toupees, the hairline is done, the only area that doesn’t look quite right, because nowadays hair systems are very, very natural looking.



But one thing that can be done if they want the most natural results and they don’t have enough hair to create a natural hair transplant, they must wear their hair system all the time, is you can create a temporal point with hair transplants, have several hundred grafts, and that can make a hair system look incredibly natural. So the biggest issue with temporal points besides having enough hair to do it and having the artistic eye of making a judgment of how it’s going to balance the hairline is technical performance. The problem with the temporal point is that the grafts and the placement have to be incredibly low. If they are high angle, they stick out and they’re actually incredibly hard to fix once when this is done badly. So you can look at my website, [www.hairtx.com] and take a look at all the temporal points I’ve reconstructed. 



But these temporal points have to be very, very low angled and that’s so critical. And the Placer who’s the assistant who’s placing these grafts must be able to place these very low grafts as well. The other point with a temporal point is that they can’t aim down. So when you’re starting with the upper temporal region, they typically aim somewhat diagonally downwards. But as you go farther down to the point, the point itself must aim backwards almost. Well, just shy of 90 degrees back because if you aim those sites downward, they hang down and you can’t see the point and it looks a little weird. So just look at some natural temporal points. You’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about. If you look at non balding scalps with very strong temporal points, they’ll give you a better idea of what I’m talking about in terms of design.