Photoacoustic Imaging as a Tool for Assessing Hair Follicular Organization

The study explored the effectiveness of photoacoustic imaging (PAI) in evaluating hair follicle density and orientation, which is crucial for hair transplant techniques like FUE and FUT. It found that PAI could detect hair follicles and measure their density and angles with high accuracy (R² = 0.96), even when the follicles were not visible to the naked eye. The technique involved using a handheld transducer to create 3D images and a skin tracing method to eliminate background noise. Although the study was limited to imaging a single healthy Caucasian male subject, the results indicated that PAI could be a valuable non-invasive tool for hair transplantation planning. The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the NSF, and no conflicts of interest were reported by the authors.