Non-surgical hair loss treatments constantly evolve by the day and the month, and this page cannot be sufficiently updated to reflect ongoing changes. The goal of this overview page is to provide a framework of the types of therapies that are currently favored and where research may be headed in the near to distant future for treatments with hair loss.
The goal with non-surgical hair loss therapies is to slow and partially reverse the process of hair thinning, also known as miniaturization. Where non-surgical therapies underperform is in individuals with complete baldness, where, if the patient is a safe candidate, then surgery would be the appropriate option. Of course, safety and efficacy need to be determined only with a licensed and experienced physician and surgeon who specializes in hair loss. Another goal of non-surgical treatments targeted toward hair loss is stabilizing unstable hair shedding.
Again, it should be emphasized that therapies must be individually tailored only after a physician recommends those therapies that would be appropriate for you. The classical therapy of oral finasteride and topical minoxidil remain the gold standard for men, whereas topical minoxidil along with other medical therapies like spironolactone can be used in women with finasteride being an adjunct in postmenopausal women who do not risk teratogenic effects, that is, risk of a birth defect.
However, these biochemical therapies have evolved as well. In the past decade topical finasteride of various strengths has become more popular, especially for men who have been reluctant to take oral finasteride due to press reports about lingering sexual side effects. Contrarily, topical minoxidil has become more popular in an oral form to enhance ease of patient compliance after reports in the lay press regarding its efficacy. In addition, there have been various tests to evaluate the genomic thumbprint that may be used to tailor dosing to an individual’s level of resistance and sensitivity to these medications. Along those lines, injectable scalp dutasteride is beginning to gain traction in some circles to help hair loss with low risk of side effects but with favorable results.
A burgeoning section of growth has been “natural” therapies that do not rely on the traditional biochemical blockades mentioned above. The treatment of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has now been used for so long that it may not even be considered a new treatment option anymore. Exosomes, which are cellular messengers, are also liked by some practitioners as an injectable therapy for hair growth. Some surgeons favor injection of fat into the hair in order to stimulate hair growth due to the abundance of stem cells within adipose tissue.
Besides injectable therapies, there are increasing numbers of nutraceuticals either delivered orally or topically that have been shown to help with hair growth and also to stabilize hair shedding. There are many variations of natural therapies which are emerging now but are in their nascent stage and it would be premature to mention them at this time in this cursory section. Advances have also been made to treat hair loss diseases that lie outside of androgenetic alopecia, that is genetic hair loss that affect men and women.
For example, a JAK kinase inhibitor has been recently FDA cleared for alopecia areata, a type of hair loss that usually involves circular patches of hair loss that may be thought to be related to an immune-mediated problem. Research has been ongoing for decades on discovering so-called “hair cloning”, or better labeled tissue engineering, to get hairs multiplied in the lab to provide unlimited donor hairs. However, despite occasional false breakthrough reports in the press about animal studies, there has not been any recognizable successes in humans as of yet. We are currently living in an era of exciting research and growth in a multitude of therapies to combat the age-old problem of hair loss, and this website will try to offer some newsworthy topics in the related news section as they enter the public consciousness.
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