About Hair Loss

Glossary of Terms

Alopecia: Loss of hair.

Alopecia Areata: Patchy baldness caused by an auto-immune process.

Anagen Hair: Growing hair.

Androgenetic Alopecia: Hereditary hair loss that affects men and women.

Angle Techniques. A technique that follows the natural direction of your hair in order to look most aesthetically pleasing.

Anagen Effluvium: Exacerbation of the normal loss of hair caused by chemotherapy or radiation.

Anterior: Towards the front of the scalp.

Cicatricial Alopecia: Scarring hair loss.

Crown: The “superior” (highest point) aspect of the scalp.

Dense Packing: A term used to describe the insertion of hair units of a high density number of follicular units in a set per square centimeter. This term can be misleading, as it implies that 500 hairs on one person’s head will create the same result on another person’s, without accounting for differences in hair type. Thicker hair types will require less hair to achieve the same effect.

Dihydrotestosterone: A hormone that inhibits hair growth (DHT).

Estrogen: A female sex hormone.

Effluvium: Hair fall-out.

Febrile: High or intense fever.

Finasteride: A drug found in medications produced by Merck, the pharmaceutical company and sold as Propecia® or Proscar®. The drug slows down hair loss and occasionally stimulates new hair growth.

Follicle: A single hair unit.

Folliculitis: Inflammation of the hair follicle.

Follicular Unit Graft: A unit of 1, 2, 3 or 4 hair roots.

Frontal: The area of the scalp centered above the forehead.

FUE or Follicular Unit Extraction: A miniature biopsy style of harvesting hair bulbs. A somewhat modernization of the old plug methodology.

Ludwig Stage Scale (I-III): A classification table used by specialists in alopecia to determine the pattern, extent and progression of female pattern loss of hair.

Minoxidil: A topical solution drug sold as Rogaine® which is most useful for certain forms of alopecia areata, can slow down male or female pattern hair loss. It is more effective in a concentrated solution.

Norwood-Hamilton Scale: A classification table used to determine the pattern and extent of hair loss commonly experienced by men.

Occipital: Lower portion of the rear of the scalp.

Scalp Reduction: A surgical procedure that was more historically used for reducing the area of baldness on the crown of the head.

Strip Harvesting: A surgical procedure that removes hair bearing skin from the scalp.

Topical: Applied to the surface of the skin.

Telogen Effluvium: Exacerbation of loss by increasing the number of resting hairs versus growing hairs.

Telogen Hair: Resting hair.

Temporal Recession: A slight loss of hair in the front temporal area, which imparts a concave appearance to the hair line on each side, with a lower peak in the middle.

Terminal Hairs: Thick, coarse hairs.

Topical: To be applied to the surface of the skin.

Vertex: The upper posterior aspect of the scalp.