The Okuda papers: an extraordinary--but unfortunately unrecognized--piece of work that could have changed the history of hair transplantation.

Abstract

Only a few fortunate doctors have had the privilege to read the so-called Okuda papers 1, probably the most comprehensive piece of work ever written about hair transplantation by a single physician. The articles, published in 1939, were written using old kanji (Japanese pictographs) and so are unintelligible in part to modern Japanese medical readers. Because of the outbreak of World War II, this seminal work remained virtually unknown outside Japan. Eventually, the Okuda papers were rediscovered and translated into English by Dr. Yoshihiro Imagawa (a retired gynaecologist trained in the USA, father of the Japanese hair transplant surgeon Kenichiro Imagawa) in 2004 2. We have arranged for all the original articles and translated sections of the Okuda papers as well as other relevant articles 3 to be available to the scientific community through a free download via the ISHRS (International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery) web site (http://www.ishrs.org/content/okuda-papers-0). Titled ‘Clinical and Experimental Study of Living Hair Transplantation’, the full work is 50 pages long and includes 100 figures. It was divided into five different sections, all of which appeared in the same issue of the Japanese Journal of Dermatology and Urology. The scientific papers of Okuda could have changed the history of hair transplantation, but as a result of external, non-scientific circumstances, they remained unknown and punch graft transplantation had to be rediscovered 20 years later by Dr. Norman Orentreich 4. Okuda should be recognized not only as a true innovator but also as a fine example of how a meticulous researcher should work. He was so keen to prove the success of his technique obtained in humans that he performed the same experiments in a variety of animal models with the same results. It is a shame that such outstanding research remained unavailable to most dermatologists, hair surgeons and hair researchers for more than 70 years. We hope that this article serves as a belated tribute to the figure of this exceptional scientist and contributes to the dissemination of his work. We would like to thank Dr. Kenichiro Imagawa (hair transplant surgeon) and Dr. Shigeki Inui (Associate Professor, Department of Regenerative Dermatology, Osaka University School of Medicine) for tracking the life of Shoji Okuda and divulgating his work. We thank Dr. Imagawa's father, Dr. Yoshihiro Imagawa for performing the translation of the original Okuda papers into English. We thank Mrs. Victoria Ceh, the executive director of the ISHRS (International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery) for her thoughtful comments and for helping in posting the PDF articles in the ISHRS website. We gratefully acknowledge Japanese Dermatological Association for providing permission and the scans of the original Okuda Papers. Both Francisco Jimenez and Richard Shiell wrote the paper and approved the final version. The authors have declared no conflicting interests.