Worried about receding hairline or hair loss? Well, the Union Hospital at Sha Tin in the New Territories offers hope and can bring smile back on your face.

But before you dash for the hospital to get a new-look, get ready with a fat wallet. For one strain of hair, you've to shell out HK$75.

Mr Tang, 40 something, has had hair loss problem for more than a decade. But not any more after he received hair transplantation using DHI technique.

Tang transplanted 2,657 hair seven days ago at the Union Hospital's DHI Hair Centre - the first hospital in Asia that has the right to use the patented technique.

For two months, Tang tried different methods like using hair-grow serum. To his frustration, these methods did not work for him.

To look smarter and younger, a desperate Tang then decided to get his hair back by way of surgery at the hospital's hair centre.

Tang is now happy with the new-look. The surgical method was not painful and he was very pleased with the outcome: hair had begun to grow on the once bald area with no visible wound.

The DHI technique was better than the typical invasive hair transplantation technique because it caused minimal pain and minimum scar, said Peter Pang Chi-wang, Director of Union DHI Hair Centre.

Typical hair transplantation technique like strip surgery cuts a strip of scalp at back of head and implants hair on the strip to the bald forehead. The technique could implant 2,000 to 3,000 hair in one surgery in one day, he said.

The minimally invasive DHI technique extracts a single hair follicular unit, which is put under microscope and implanted into the bald region with patented DHI implanter, a small equipment in the form of an iron tube that houses a needle inside, he said.

For DHI technique, it could implant 1,000 to 1,500 hair a day for eight hours' surgery, he said.

Although the typical technique was faster and could implant more hair, it would result in damaged hair follicles and leave a big scar on back of head after surgery, he explained.

Minimal damage

DHI technique, on the other hand, would leave a scar less than 1mm in diameter, thanks to the DHI implanter, there is minimal damage to the follicles and it could better control the density, depth and direction of the implanted hair, he said.

He said DHI technique had been very effective, with 95 per cent of successful hair growth after surgery.

He explained that most of the implanted hair would fall out in four weeks and new hair would re-grow from the follicles in three months. Permanent hair would be fully re-grown in 10 months.

For typical technique the price range varies between HK$60-HK$100 for each hair. For DHI technique, it costs HK$75 per hair, said the centre's Nurse Co-ordinator Karin Lai.

She said most customers at least transplanted 1,000 hair and it depended on customers' need.

Customers who implant more than 2,000 hair at their centre could get each extra hair implanted afterwards at HK$60, she added.

Fifty per cent of men in 50s suffer from hereditary baldness, but nowadays more people in 20s to 30s face hair loss problem, with stress being the possible cause, said Pang.

The centre started the first surgery using DHI technique in August, and less than 10 people had used the service so far, he said.

DHI technique was developed in 2003 by DHI International, a global hair restoration service provider with more than 37 years of experience in hair restoration.

The physicians at Union DHI Hair Centre have undergone intensive training at the company's head office in Greece, Pang said.