I have covered hair transplants in Turkey (Türkiye) in several past posts. You just cannot avoid it, considering that Istanbul (Turkey) is the world capital for hair transplants. A combination of: low costs per graft; excellent geographical location; and thousands of good and bad clinics has resulted in Turkey’s hair transplant industry being worth over $2 billion per year.
Is Turkey’s Golden Age of Hair Transplants Ending?
However, it was only a matter of time before the competition caught up, in spite of the “Turkish Hairlines” moniker becoming synonymous with hair restoration procedures. A new article in South China Morning Post (originally from the German Press Agency — dpa) is titled:
“The world hair transplant capital is in Turkey, but is clinics’ golden age nearing an end?”
The same article was also published in Yahoo earlier this month. The content starts off with estimating that Istanbul is home to a stunning 5,000 hair transplant clinics. And we know that the vast majority of these clinics are willing to undertake many procedures per day if they can get enough patients. Like an assembly line, but with a mixed bag of results.
According to the Turkish state tourism association, 1.5 million health tourists visited the country in 2023. And hair transplants were the second most desired procedure. They do not mention the most popular one, but I would assume that it is also a cosmetic treatment.
In the SCMP article, the well known Turkish hair transplant surgeon Dr. Koray Erdogan admits that:
“There are as many good as bad clinics in Istanbul.”
Moreover, he claims that hospitals in Europe now offer hair transplant procedures for $2,000, which was unheard of in the past.
I find it hard to believe that any hospital in Western Europe could offer such a low price. It must be hospitals in Eastern European countries.
Dr. Erdogan ends by saying that:
“The golden age in Turkey is coming to an end.”
Perhaps this is too soon to make such a conclusion. Just two days ago, the Daily Mail promoted a likely incorrect theory that NFL fans were convinced that Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce got a hair transplant in Turkey.
If even American citizens assume that a multimillionaire NFL player flies all the way to Turkey to get a hair transplant, the brand recognition remains stellar.
I think people are slowly realizing (not just with HT in Turkey but everywhere) that, while it does fix the issue for some, many need a second or even a third surgery. Additionally, the hair transplanted can also still fall out eventually (they lie if/when they claim it can’t) and many simply don’t have the donor hair – thin sides means very little hair to utilize (so they end up using fewer grafts than truly needed and the result is meh). Let’s face it, 3k grafts won’t do jack if you’re pretty far gone.
There are some great surgeons out there (many in Turkey but all over really) and the results can be great. But we need an actual cure (which may or may not be cloned hair to transplant so one can do 4k grafts every year until they have the desired result without running out of donor hair).
Indeed, it’s not a sustainable solution. Hair follicle miniaturization can still happen even after a HT and on a maintence protocol.
If you are gonna get an HT…then it makes no sense to not use verteporfin on the donor now that we know it works to some degree to restore the donor.
For a split second, I thought I read: ‘Golden hair transplants on turkeys ending’.