Neither the patients nor the doctors asked to review response to treatments were made aware of which lesions were treated with which.

Dr Trink conducted a high level study consisting of 45 patients with alopecia areata who received intra-lesional steroid injections to one half of their head and PRP injections to the other half. Dr Jeff Donovan published a case report in 2015 highlighting the success he had with the use of PRP in a case of steroid resistant alopecia areata.ĭr Bagherins, based in Iran, published an article in Dermatologic Therapy in 2016, where he discussed the findings of a study conducted by Dr Trink in 2013. In other words, those using topical minoxidil for male and female pattern hair loss often suffer significant increased hair loss when they stop treatment. This has also been a feature of the use of minoxidil in the treatment of male and female pattern hair loss. He also noted that those treated with PRP did not suffer from recurrence of symptoms on stopping treatment whereas those being treated with minoxidil often suffered a rebound hair loss. This was after Dr Singh treated 20 patients with PRP for alopecia areata and obtained excellent positive results in 19 of them. When activated and subsequently injected in high concentrations, platelets are able to attract large numbers of critical growth factors that instigate a powerful inflammatory response as well invigorating the local blood supply.ĭr El Taieb’s findings were in keeping with those of Dr Singh who published research in 2015, concluding that PRP had a definite role to play in the treatment of alopecia areata. PRP treatment comprises using your own platelets, harvested from your own blood, concentrated and then applied to the region of interest. It has now taken on real significance in aesthetic and anti-ageing medicine. It has been used for years in cardiothoracic, orthopaedic and plastic surgery. Platelet rich plasma (PRP) is rapidly gaining a reputation for a wide variety of uses in the field of medicine. Other more marginal treatment options do exist, however, steroid resistant alopecia areata can be extremely difficult to treat and be the source of significant psychological distress for sufferers of the condition. Treatment options for alopecia areata include the use of intra-lesional steroid injections (steroid injections into the patches of hair loss) as well as systemic corticosteroids in the form of tablets. The cause of alopecia areata is not completely understood but is very likely to have an autoimmune cause whereby the body’s own immune system attacks hair follicles in the scalp and beard.

The patches of hair loss can vary significantly in their distribution and can indeed merge together to result in much larger areas of hair loss or in fact total hair loss.

It results in well defined circular patches of hair loss spread sporadically over the scalp in men and women as well the beard regions of men. Alopecia areata affects 0.1% to 0.2% of the population.

Alopecia universalis treatment 2015