What is the limit for transplant densities?
Hair can be transplanted at a density that approaches 35% of the original density in many people. The ability to place such densities depends upon many factors which include: hair thickness, skin characteristics, the size of the instruments for making sites, the skill of the surgical team at placing grafts tightly together and the processes that reflect the quality management of the surgical team. Not all doctors can place, for example, two hair grafts into a 0.9mm recipient site. Even in the hands of a good surgical team, not all hair grafts can be placed into a 0.9mm recipient site. So there is a balance between what can be done and what should be done. A surgeon with considerable experience in hair transplantation dense packing is best able to make the judgments required for maximizing hair densities. I pioneered Dense Packing with the first published mention in a 1993 article in the Hair Transplant Forum and have been using this technique ever since. More recently, we have moved to combining Dense Packing and Large Session surgeries to maximize yield and reduce the number of surgeries required to get a person to his goal faster.