On September 14-18, 2011 19th Congress of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery, the biggest society worldwide dealing with hair restoration surgeries, took place in Anchorage (Alaska, USA). Such unique and unusual location did not scare away the leading surgeons in the world who, as usual, decided to meet to exchange the latest views on baldness treatment. A lot of papers touched upon the research on the reasons of alopecia and the possibility of cloning hair follicles. The FUE procedure is becoming more and more popular. Today, the majority of doctor’s offices or clinics worldwide specializing in hair restoration surgeries apply this method, which constitutes as much as 20-30% of the procedures. The issue of using robots in hair restoration surgeries aroused a heated debate. Dr Jerzy Kolasinski, Dr Małgorzata Kolenda and Mariola Reszke took part in the Congress. Dr Kolasinski presented a movie showing the advantages of Tricho Scan examination facilitating the process of qualifying patients to hair transplantation surgeries and the paper on the role of EGFR receptor in androgenic alopecia. He also made a presentation on treating baldness in women. Dr Kolenda represented the Polish Society of Hair Restoration Surgery during the Global Council of Hair Restoration Surgery Societies Meeting – the meeting of the representatives of the societies from all around the world. A nice complement of the Congress was the Honorable Mention given to Dr Jerzy Kolasinski as a sign of gratitude for his six-year-long work in the ISHRS Board. The 19th Congress of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery was extremely interesting, and the choice of Alaska as a meeting spot became an additional attraction for the numerous group of participants.
The participants of the Global Council of Hair Restoration Surgery Societies Meeting – the first from the left, the President of ISHRS Jerry E. Cooley, in the middle Dr Małgorzata Kolenda and Dr Jerzy Kolasinski
ARTAS – a robot used for collecting hair grafts