Written by the AfroHairClinicTurkey editorial team, drawing on the clinical experience of our medical team · Last updated August 21, 2026 · How we write and check this
On this page 8 sections
Most clinic websites ask you to take their word for it. This page exists so you do not have to take ours.
Everything factual on this site — a surgeon’s training, who opens the channels, what a package covers, what the literature says about coiled follicles — is held in a register before it is written into a page. Each entry records what is being claimed, where the claim comes from, and how strongly it is backed. If the backing is not there, the page does not get to say it.
Below: how that works, then the current state of it, including the parts we have not been able to confirm.
Right now, 32 statements on this site are published with a source you can open. 21 more are withheld until the documentation arrives — you see that we asked, never the unproven claim.
- 19 Primary literature
- 1 Professional guideline
- 8 First-party, traceable
- 21 Documentation requested — withheld
Shown with its source
Every published statement links to where you can check it, graded by how strong that source is — from peer-reviewed literature down to first-party documentation we can point you to.
Withheld until documented
When we have asked for proof and do not have it, the statement is not published at all. You see that we requested it — never the claim itself, wearing a badge it has not earned.
Never shown
Some statements we decline to publish outright. By design these are not even counted here — a number would tell you a subject exists.
What we verify
Not every sentence on a website is a claim worth checking. “Istanbul is a long flight from Atlanta” needs no register entry. What goes into the register is anything a reader might reasonably rely on when deciding whether to trust us with their scalp:
- Who the surgeons are — where they trained, what they are certified in, which societies they belong to, how long they have practised.
- Who does what during surgery. In this industry that is the question that separates clinics, and it is the one most often answered vaguely.
- What the clinic is — rooms, daily patient numbers, languages actually spoken.
- What things cost, and what moves the number.
- What you get in a package, and what happens after you fly home.
- Medical statements — anything about hair, skin, risk or outcome.
What counts as evidence
We separate two things that are usually blurred together: whether we can point at a source, and how independent that source is. A claim can be perfectly traceable and still be the clinic talking about itself.
Official registry or independent source
A regulator, a licensing body or a professional society’s own public record. This is the strongest thing we can offer on a credential, because the organisation confirming it has no stake in our marketing. When we have this, we link to it so you can check it yourself rather than reading our summary of it.
Primary literature
For medical statements only. A peer-reviewed paper, read in full — not an abstract skimmed, not a figure lifted from another website. The rule we hold ourselves to is that our wording bends to the source, never the other way round. If a paper supports half of what we wanted to say, we publish the half.
A worked example, because the principle is easy to state and easy to quietly ignore. We wanted to publish a transection-rate figure for coiled hair. The closest published study we found reported rates of 2.2–4.3% — but only six of its 152 patients had coiled hair, and its actual conclusion was that scalp thickness and firmness affected more than curliness did. It did not support what we wanted to say. So there is no transection percentage anywhere on this site, and that source sits in our library marked unusable, with the reason written down.
First-party documentation
The clinic states it and we can show you where. This is real evidence — it means the claim is traceable to a specific published source rather than invented in a marketing meeting — but it is not independent confirmation, and we label it as what it is. Most of what is currently on this site sits at this level. We would rather tell you that than let one word carry more weight than it has earned.
What happens when evidence is missing
The claim does not get published. Not softened, not hedged into something vaguer, not moved to a less prominent part of the page — withheld.
This has a consequence worth being explicit about: you will see gaps here, and the gaps are the point. A surgeon’s society membership that we have asked about and not yet received documentation for does not appear on their profile, does not appear in the structured data search engines read, and does not appear on this page. What appears is the fact that we asked.
We show the category, never the content. “Documentation requested: society membership” tells you where we are without publishing the unconfirmed statement through the back door. If we listed the claim itself under a grey label, we would have published exactly the thing we said we were withholding.
When information is removed
Three situations:
- A source is withdrawn or superseded. The claim it supported closes immediately — the text and the structured data both.
- A claim is contradicted. It is removed and the reason is recorded, so the same statement cannot quietly reappear later.
- A clinical review goes stale. A surgeon’s sign-off covers the version of the page they read. Edit the page and the sign-off no longer applies, so it drops until the page is reviewed again. This is automatic, not a matter of anyone remembering.
How often records are rechecked
Every entry carries the date it was last checked, and the dates shown on this page are read from those records rather than typed in by a person. Credentials and registry links are rechecked at least annually, or sooner if the issuing body changes how it publishes. Medical sources are rechecked when a claim is edited and when we become aware of newer evidence. Our keloid source is a 1988 review — it states plainly that Black patients form more often than white patients and that the reason is not known, which is exactly and only what we say. It is flagged in our library for replacement when we have read a modern review in full.
If you find something here that is out of date, wrong, or better sourced elsewhere, tell us. Corrections are the cheapest evidence we can get.
Our current verification status
Generated live from the register. Nothing below is written by hand, which means it cannot flatter us on a day when the underlying records say otherwise.
Records last checked: September 3, 2026. Last updated: September 3, 2026.
Both dates are read from the records themselves, not typed in by hand.
Where each kind of information stands
Doctor identity & education
Which surgeon is who, and where they trained.
✔ 3 · Original document sighted by us
- Istanbul University, Faculty of Medicine — Doctor of Medicine, 2011
- Demiroğlu Bilim Üniversitesi — Health Services Vocational School — Emergency First Aid, associate degree, 5 July 2019
- İstanbul Medipol Üniversitesi — Health Services Vocational School — Anaesthesia, associate degree, 8 June 2017
○ 1 · Documentation requested
Professional memberships & certifications
Society memberships, board certifications and registration records.
✔ 1 · Original document sighted by us
- Hair Transplantation Practitioner certificate — Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health, registered 5 December 2025
○ 2 · Documentation requested
Experience & procedure volume
Career history, and how many procedures a surgeon has performed.
○ 8 · Documentation requested
Procedure responsibilities
Which steps of the operation are performed by a doctor rather than a technician.
✔ 2 · Documented by a first-party source
- Channel opening is carried out by physicians
- Grafts are inspected under optical magnification before implantation, in every case
Clinic & facility information
Rooms, daily patient numbers, languages supported.
✔ 2 · Documented by a first-party source
- Patient support in nine languages — English, French, German, Russian, Romanian, Italian, Arabic, Spanish and Turkish
- Ten treatment and procedure rooms, plus one emergency intervention room, two washing rooms and one PRP room
○ 1 · Documentation requested
Pricing
What a procedure costs and what moves the number.
✔ 1 · Documented by a first-party source
- Price varies with the scope of the package — accommodation, length of stay, hotel, transfers and any additional services — rather than being a single published rate
Travel & package information
What an all-inclusive package covers.
✔ 1 · Documented by a first-party source
- Packages are built per patient and include hotel accommodation, VIP transfers, post-operative care products and an orthopaedic travel pillow; every package includes one PRP session, two oxygen therapy sessions and one laser therapy session
Aftercare
What support continues after you fly home, and for how long.
✔ 2 · Documented by a first-party source
- A designated patient coordinator can be contacted whenever support is needed, and reaches the medical team when necessary
- Post-operative follow-up and support for one year after the procedure
Medical claims
Statements about hair, skin and surgical risk. These additionally require a published source.
✔ 19 · Supported by primary literature
- Keloid scarring occurs more often in Black patients than in white patients; the reason for the difference is not established. Dermatologic Clinics 1988 →
- In tightly curled hair the follicle sits curved beneath the skin rather than straight, with a bent, golf-club-shaped bulb and an asymmetric root sheath. Br J Dermatol 2005; Int J Dermatol 2007 →
- The curvature is built into the follicle itself — it persists in hair grown in culture, and it tracks with curl pattern rather than with ethnic origin. Br J Dermatol 2005; Int J Dermatol 2007; J Struct Biol 2006 →
- Traction induces inflammation and follicle damage, and the risk rises with styles that hurt — pain from a hairstyle is a warning sign rather than something to tolerate. Dermatologic Clinics 2014 →
- Traction alopecia can progress to permanent hair loss if the styling that causes it continues. J Am Acad Dermatol 2016 →
- In a population study of 874 African adults in Cape Town, traction alopecia was found in 31.7% of the women examined. Br J Dermatol 2007 →
- Traction alopecia was most common among women whose usual style was extensions attached to chemically relaxed hair, affecting 48% of that group. Br J Dermatol 2007 →
- In the same Cape Town population, central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia was found in 2.7% of women, rising to 6.7% of women over 50. Br J Dermatol 2007 →
- Central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia is the most common form of scarring alopecia among women of African ancestry. N Engl J Med 2019 →
- Variants in the PADI3 gene, which encodes a protein needed to build the hair shaft, have been associated with CCCA. The association does not explain every case: most patients studied carried no such variant. N Engl J Med 2019 →
- In a case-control survey of 101 African American women, no correlation was found between the use of hot combs or chemical relaxers and the development of CCCA, contrary to what had long been assumed. J Am Acad Dermatol 2009 →
- The same survey did find a strong association between CCCA and sewn-in weaves, and between CCCA and cornrows or braids using artificial extensions. Women with CCCA were also more likely to report pulling and tenderness from those styles. J Am Acad Dermatol 2009 →
- Hair transplantation has been reported as safe and effective in CCCA, but only in two published cases, and only where the disease was end-stage and a scalp biopsy showed no remaining inflammation. Dermatol Surg 2014 →
- In a case series of 18 patients with tightly curled hair, conventional rotary punches either failed outright or produced excessive transection in 8 of them, while a curved non-rotary punch kept transection below 5%. Plast Reconstr Surg Glob Open 2016 →
- In a retrospective series of 64 patients of African descent, the mean transection rate was 3-6%, and scalp thickness and firmness affected it more than hair curliness did. Dermatol Surg 2023; Clin Cosmet Investig Dermatol 2023 →
- For context, a study of 42 patients undergoing conventional FUE with a 1 mm punch found transection in 6.3-7.4% of grafts. Transection is not unique to textured hair; it is a feature of the technique. Plast Reconstr Surg Glob Open 2017 →
- Punch geometry is the lever surgeons have used against transection: shapes that keep the cutting edge away from the follicle beneath the skin have been reported to reduce it. J Cosmet Dermatol 2020 →
- Scalp biopsies from 22 African American and 12 white patients found total hair density significantly lower in the African American group. Arch Dermatol 1999 →
- The Norwood classification of male pattern baldness reports its incidence data from 1,000 white adult male subjects. South Med J 1975 →
✔ 1 · Supported by a professional guideline
- There is no established standard of care for treating CCCA. A 2024 Delphi panel of 27 hair-disorder dermatologists reached strong consensus on only 20 of 70 statements they considered. J Am Acad Dermatol 2024 →
○ 8 · Documentation requested
Patient outcomes
Results, timelines and what patients can expect.
○ 1 · Documentation requested
Medical evidence
- 31 active sources in our evidence library
- 20 medical claims currently supported by at least one active source
- 9 awaiting stronger evidence — not published while they wait
- 5 source(s) read and set aside as not usable, with the reason recorded
By surgeon
| Surgeon | Documented | Documentation requested |
|---|---|---|
| Ayhan Sever | 1 | Experience / procedure volume (2) |
| Dr. Harun Eymen Alakaya | 2 | Experience / procedure volume (2) |
| Tuğçe Arslan | 1 | Experience / procedure volume (2), Society membership |
Categories only in the right-hand column. The statements behind them are not published while they are unverified.
What we have not verified yet
- Doctor identity & education
- Professional memberships & certifications
- Experience & procedure volume
- Clinic & facility information
- Medical claims
- Patient outcomes
These are categories, not statements. Where we hold an unverified claim, the claim itself stays unpublished until we can point at a source for it — so this list tells you where the gaps are without quietly publishing the thing we could not confirm.
What these labels mean
- Verified against an official registry
- We checked the statement against a regulator or professional body's own public record and found it there.
- Verified against an independent source
- Confirmed by a source that is neither us nor the clinic.
- Supported by primary literature
- A peer-reviewed paper we have read in full supports the statement as written. We adjust our wording to what the source actually says rather than the other way round.
- Supported by a professional guideline
- A professional body's published guidance supports the statement.
- Original document sighted by us
- An independent body issued the document — a university diploma, a ministry certificate — and we have seen the original. It sits below a registry check on purpose: the issuer is not the clinic, which is what makes it worth something, but there is no public record you can look it up in, so you are taking our word that we saw it. We would rather say that than dress it up as a registry entry.
- Documented by a first-party source
- The clinic states it and we can show you where. This is the weakest level that still appears on the site: it means the statement is traceable, not that an outside body has confirmed it. We would rather label it honestly than let the word "verified" do work it has not earned.
- Documentation requested
- We have asked for the paperwork and do not have it yet. The underlying statement is not published anywhere on this site until it arrives — you are seeing that we asked, not what was claimed.
- Not currently published
- We hold nothing in this category, so we say nothing about it.
Where the tools show their working
The interactive tools in the Afro Hair Lab are held to the standard on this page rather than a looser one. Anything that calculates a number publishes a methodology: what it computes, which assumptions it makes, and what it deliberately refuses to tell you. A tool that cannot show its working is a graphic, not an instrument.
- Hair Pattern Assessment — methodology
- Donor Density Explorer — methodology
- Before & After Interpreter — methodology
What this page is not
It is not a score. There is no percentage, no star rating, no badge, and no claim to be more transparent than anyone else. Compressing this into a number would ask you to trust our arithmetic instead of reading the record — which is the thing we are trying to stop doing to you.
It is also not a comparison. We are a clinic, and a clinic ranking its competitors is advertising with footnotes. What we can honestly do is publish our own method and our own results against it. If you want to hold another clinic to the same standard, the method above is written plainly enough to reuse — ask them which of their claims are confirmed by an outside body, which are their own word, and what happens on their site when the answer is neither.
Glossary: every term we use, defined and sourced →
Our measurement protocol, published before any data was collected →