Successful Hair Transplant Outcome in Cicatricial Lichen Planus of the Scalp by Combining Scalp and Beard Hair Along with Platelet Rich Plasma

Eight years ago, a successful hair transplant was performed on a 24-year-old male patient with inactive end-stage lichen planopilaris, a type of scarring alopecia. The procedure involved a combination of scalp and beard hair along with platelet rich plasma (PRP). Initially, a test patch of 50 grafts was harvested from the unaffected scalp and implanted into a patch of lichen planopilaris. After observing 80% regrowth in the test patch, the remaining patches of scarring alopecia were covered by follicular unit extraction (FUE) hair grafts from the beard area and unaffected scalp area. A total of 850 grafts were harvested for the second session, with 500 from the scalp and 350 from the beard. Ten months after the procedure, 80% of the transplanted grafts from both the scalp and beard area survived and showed optimal growth. The transplanted follicles from the beard area showed faster hair growth compared to the scalp hair follicles. The study concluded that body hair from beard areas can be used in combination with scalp hair for transplants when there is a lack of adequate donor hair due to widespread cicatricial patches in the scalp.