Rapid and Accurate Digital Measurement of the Recipient Area in Hair Transplantation Using a Tablet Application

Abstract

Background: The recipient area measurement using grid counting is still a standard practiced by the majority of hair restoration surgeons. However, it is time-consuming and not quite accurate when the area is in different shapes such as a triangle, long and narrow shape, or circle.

Objective: We propose a digital recipient area measurement using a tablet application¹ instead of visual counting of the grids manually drawn by the refined Chang's method.

Method: Once the recipient area was drawn using the refined Chang's method,² we used an irregular area calculator application (SketchAndCalc). We then compared it with the refined Chang's method counted by two physicians and one nurse in 20 patients who visited the clinic for a consultation or pre-operative assessment.

Results: The analysis of both methods by Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) showed that the SketchAndCalc application has excellent reliability (ICC=1) equal to the refined Chang's method (ICC=0.99). However, when the measured area is long and narrow, the SketchAndCalc is more accurate and precise since it can record in decimal points.

Conclusion: The SketchAndCalc application is an easy, rapid, accurate method on a portable device for recipient area measurement.