Letter: Defining the Frontal Area in Hair Restoration Surgery
December 2010
in “
Dermatologic Surgery
”
TLDR The letter discusses a disagreement about the definition of the "frontal area" in hair restoration surgery and questions the effectiveness of treatments like finasteride and minoxidil on this area.
The document is a letter to the editor by Walter Unger, MD, critiquing Marc Avram's article on hair transplantation. Unger pointed out a discrepancy in the definition of the "frontal area" of the scalp in hair restoration surgery. He noted that Avram's reference to a study by Leyden and colleagues, which defined the frontal area as those areas anterior to the vertex, did not align with the typical definition used in hair restoration surgery. Unger's definition of the frontal area extends from the hairline zone to a line drawn vertically from the tragus of the ears, excluding the midscalp area included in Leyden's definition. Unger also questioned the effectiveness of finasteride and minoxidil on the frontal area, stating that the response to finasteride in this area has not been scientifically studied in a valid way.