A friend told me that hair transplants aren’t an option for women because they only work for men with pattern baldness. Is that true?

Answer:

Yes and no. For a transplant to be successful, “donor hairs” need to be harvested from a region of the head that is resistant to going bald. On men, this is straightforward because some areas of the scalp are genetically programmed to resist DHT, the hormone that causes male pattern baldness. On women, there may not be any such area and there may not be any donor hairs that aren’t prone to the same problems causing the hair loss elsewhere on the head. That’s why it is so important for women experiencing thinning hair to get thoroughly evaluated by a physician to determine the cause of their hair loss.
Some women do experience the same balding pattern as men, and can have the same great response to hair transplant surgery. Women with thin or bald patches from burns, radiation therapy, trauma, or surgical scarring, like those left from facelifts that distort the hairline, are also good candidates for transplant surgery.