Patna: The burns and plastic surgery department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Patna has conducted five hair transplant surgeries in the last one month.

The launch of the hair transplant facility at AIIMS Patna is helpful for residents because doctors at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) also conduct the surgery, but not regularly.

Head of the burns and plastic surgery department of AIIMS, Dr Veena Singh, said that the follicular unit transplantation technique had been used in the five surgeries.

"There are two hair transplant surgery techniques," Singh explained. "One is follicular unit transplantation in which the surgeons harvest a strip of skin from the posterior scalp (back of the head) which has good hair growth and then it is transplanted in the bald region.

"In the other technique, follicular unit extraction, individual hair follicle is extracted from the back of the head and then transplanted in the bald area. We are doing the follicular unit transplantation over here. However, we cannot help completely bald patients with the technique because we take hair follicle from the back of the patient's scalp for hair transplantation procedure. So, completely bald patients cannot be helped out," said Veena.

Experiments were going on now across the world to extract hair from chest and then transplant to the scalp of a patient who is completely bald, she said.

While the hair transplant surgery costs between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 3 lakh at private hospitals, the cost is between Rs 15,000 and Rs 25,000 at AIIMS Patna.

"The hospital is yet to fix the surgery charge," Singh said. "Patients who are getting the surgery are not paying the surgery cost, rather they are spending money on the medicine and other necessary things being used in the surgery. Right now we have manpower crunch in the department as there are only three doctors along with three junior and senior residents, due to which we cannot take up many cases at a time. We are choosing patient on their priority basis now.

Asked how much time it takes for one to see the result of the surgery, Singh said: "It takes at least six months."

A 30-year-old male patient, who recently got hair transplant surgery done at AIIMS Patna, said: "Many of my marriage proposals were rejected due to my hair-loss problem. When I got to know that hair transplant surgery is being done here in the hospital, I thought why not give it a try. I am just hoping for best now. The doctors have told me that results would be visible after a few months."

AIIMS has also started eyebrow reconstruction surgery.