a procedureFollicular unit extraction

Follicular units are cut out of the back and sides of the scalp one at a time with a punch under a millimetre across, sorted under magnification, and placed into slits made in the bald area. The donor area is finite and does not regrow; a transplant moves hair, it does not make more. The operation takes most of a day under local anaesthetic, and the transplanted hairs shed before they grow.

Inference -- FUE is the operation that made Istanbul a destination, and the reason is arithmetic. The work is long, repetitive and labour-intensive, it needs no ward, no general anaesthetic and no implant, and its cost is almost entirely staff time. A trade built on staff time relocates to where staff time is cheaper, and it did.

The pricing unit is the graft, and that is where the comparison fails. Estenove in Istanbul states plainly that it does not price per graft: its packages run at 3,395, 4,595 and 6,595 euro for what the clinic describes as the maximum number of grafts necessary, with hotel nights, transfers, a PRP session and an aftercare kit inside the price. The same page quotes a per-graft range of 0.65 to 0.95 euro across Turkish clinics generally. In London, Wimpole Clinic publishes hair transplant prices from 3,499 pounds with pre-care, surgery and aftercare included and no VAT added.

A per-graft price and a per-session price are two different contracts. Per graft, the number of grafts decides the bill, and the number is set by the seller after the sale. Per session, the bill is fixed and the number of grafts is set by the seller after the sale as well - but in the other direction. Wimpole's own mystery-shopper survey put one photograph of a man with Norwood stage 2-3 hair loss to 104 UK clinics and used the replies of 58: the recommended graft counts for the same head differed by 2,100 grafts, and the clinic's report states that in many cases the number of grafts recommended was inflated and the price per graft reduced to appear more competitive. Their averages: 4,820 pounds for a 1,500 graft procedure, 3.25 pounds per graft, with quotes running from 1,995 to 15,000 pounds.

The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery has published a position statement on who does the cutting. In its words a properly trained and licensed physician or physician extender should perform the preoperative diagnostic evaluation and consultation, surgery planning and surgery execution - including donor hair harvesting, hairline design and recipient site creation - and it names three risks when unlicensed technicians do that work: misdiagnosis, failure to diagnose hair disorders and related systemic diseases, and unnecessary or ill-advised surgery. The statement is dated 10 January 2024, updated from September 2014.

Local anaesthetic, one long day or two, no ward. The donor strip is shaved in most techniques; unshaven variants cost more and take longer. Grafts are counted out loud in some clinics and not in others, and the count on the invoice is the count the clinic states. Transplanted hairs fall out within weeks and regrow from three months; the result is judged at twelve to eighteen months, well after the patient has flown home. Redness and crusting last about ten days, which is what package hotel nights are built around.

Three published prices sit on this record - a Turkish package, a London 'from' price, and a Dubai range - plus one clinic's published survey of 58 UK clinics quoting on the same photograph. The graft count, not the currency, is what makes them hard to compare.

This page describes an operation and how it is sold. It is not advice about having one.