Source policy
Where our information actually comes from.
No medical claim, recovery instruction, or price range gets published just because competitors repeat it.
Top priority
Clinical bodies & guidelines
Commercial sources
Price observations only
Last updated
13 August 2026
Source hierarchy
We prioritise sources in this order when researching a guide.
1. Clinical guidance and professional bodies
- International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS)
- American Academy of Dermatology (AAD)
- NHS hair transplant guidance
- British Association of Hair Restoration Surgery (BAHRS)
- NCBI Bookshelf: Hair Transplantation
2. Peer-reviewed literature
Review, guideline, and technique papers from PubMed and PubMed Central. We prioritise systematic reviews, consensus papers, and recent complication reviews over single case reports.
3. Official Istanbul and Turkey sources
- HealthTürkiye
- T.C. Sağlık Bakanlığı (Turkish Ministry of Health) materials and current international health-tourism regulation
- Şehir Hatları, Metro İstanbul, and GoTürkiye for practical travel information
4. Commercial sources
Used only for clearly labelled price observations and package-structure comparisons. Never used on their own to support a claim about medical superiority, safety, or candidacy.
Our on-page citation standard
Every comprehensive medical guide on this site is written to include:
- Visible author and medical reviewer information.
- A publication date and a "last medically reviewed" date.
- Claim-level inline citations where a specific fact or figure is stated.
- A short "what the evidence does and doesn't show" note wherever the evidence is limited.
- A references list with source title, publisher, year, and a direct link.
- A visible way to flag a correction, and a version note when something changes.
We're still working through bringing every existing guide up to this exact standard as they get reviewed and updated; see our corrections page if you spot one that isn't there yet.
How we write about uncertainty
Where outcomes genuinely vary, we say so with words like "may," "often," and "typically," and with ranges instead of single numbers. The specific wording rules we hold every guide to are documented on our editorial policy page.