ACell, a Current Review of Applications in Hair Transplant Surgery

[montrose]

When I contacted the office I was told it would cost $3000.

[Spanish Dude]

When I contacted the office I was told it would cost $3000.

I think trialists should be paid money, not charged.

[Spanish Dude]

Ah, Dr. Hitzig, something else.

It seems that your colleage Dr. Cooley is having difficulties planting plucked hairs on scar tissue. First he said that yield was 40-50% but now it seems that it was just a "jackpot".

You, however, seem to be quite sucessful doing autoplucking on scars, because, in your Acell presentation, you claimed that you planted 55 plucked hairs on a scar, and not only they grew, but amazingly they multiplied to 150 hairs!!

So, I think dr. Cooley needs your help. Would you help him to achieve good results with autocloning in scar tissue?

http://www.iahrs.org/news/acell-matristem-hair-loss-dr-gary-hitzig-displays-preliminary-results/

Part I, Minute 7:40.
Hitzig plants 55 plucked temple hairs on a "long standing refractory scar".
At 4 months, early growth can be seen, according to him.
At 8 months, there are 150 hairs growing on the scar.

[CVAZBAR]

$3000??? Why so much for something that does not guarantee you anything excellent??

[KeepHoping]

To the doctors who use Acell

Can we see results of the transplants with robust growth? Why haven't more pictures come out? If you are seeing much higher hair counts the recipients should look incredible. These donor pics are impressive but I'd like to see both sides.

[montrose]

$3000??? Why so much for something that does not guarantee you anything excellent??

I agree with you. PRP injections by themselves cost $1000, so an extra $2000 seems crazy. If the price came down a bit i would definitely give it a shot.

[SilverSurfer]

Thanks Montrose. I agree way to expensive for an alternative with unproven or definite results yet.

[SilverSurfer]

Dr Cole

With the use of ACell in the donnor area, what would you say the percentage of regenerated donnor sites comes out to be?
In other words say you use 1000 grafts, how many of those sites would you say regenerates follicles?

[CVAZBAR]

I agree with you. PRP injections by themselves cost $1000, so an extra $2000 seems crazy. If the price came down a bit i would definitely give it a shot.

Even $1000 is too much. Remember every person is different and until they prove that it will guarantee good results for everyone, its definitely not worth it. This is truly unfair knowing people will desperately try it and probably wont get anything out of it. Not everyone is rich to be throwing away thousands of dollars for some shit that cant guarantee you anything. After you pay $3000 for the treatment, what next? You will have to go back a month later to get another shot? HAHA. What if you need it constantly to maintain what you have? How the hell do you afford that? I thought this was to HELP people from suffering, not to milk the shit out of them.

[PatientlyWaiting]

The results are what they are to date. It's still early but very promising. I have always felt that it's easier to save the hair than to grow it back and I do believe there is a point of no return when the miniaturazation is irreversible.
As I keep telling multiple patient inquiries, please prove me wrong.
I think time will tell us whether we need multiple injections or if not, how long between them. I look as the ACell/PRP injections like a flu shot--it may not work 100% but it certainly is helpful.
Sorry you haven't been blown away by the results, but the results are the results to date.
Hope to blow you away in time.
GH

Than you for your response Dr. Hitzig.

If anything, I would definitely do the ACell/PRP injection over any hair transplant, i'd take my chances with growing/strengthening my native hair and maybe regrowing some of the peechfuzz I have around my forehead, rather than get a transplant. I am only 22 years old, seeing the pictures in your page, made me happy that I have more hair than those guys' "after" pictures. It made me happy because maybe it can work twice as better for me. It didn't have me jumping around in my seat but I believe it shouldn't have, at least not yet? If i'm not mistaken, you said this is just early experimental stuff? As an experimental treatment, yes it is great results. But maybe my wording was wrong and I should have said as some kind of a "cure" it didn't blow me away. But i'm definitely excited about what's ahead with ACell and to tell you the truth, if I can afford it right now i'd have called you right now and taken the ACell+PRP injection tomorrow

Definitely, down the line, your PRP+ACell injection is my number 1 option. It's very convenient too since I live in New York. For now i'm stuck with Minoxidil+Finasteride. I'll keep my fingers crossed that everything goes well with ACell, because I may very well take the plunge soon.

[HairTalk]

I have been doing non-shaven FUE for many years. i strongly feel this is the future in FUE for all patients. It requires more preparation time, but it does allow the patient to return to work the next day without shaving. There still are many physicians who are unaware that patients do not need to shave their donor area. i've done well over 3500 grafts on a patient in one day without shaving the donor area of my patient. i think a good mark is about 2000 to 2500 grafts in one procedure non-shaven, however.

How do you perform F.U.E. without shaving the patient? How would you gain access to the follicles?

i honestly think that Dr. Hitzig and Dr. Cooley need to inject the donor area with Acell, in addition to the plucked follicles. i'm really worried about what will grow in the donor area if they do not do this. I'm sure they will keep us posted on their results.

Are you saying you're suspicious there would be loss in the donor area when using the plucking method? If not, I'm unclear to what you mean; if so, I'm as unclear, though in a different way (as far as I know, plucked hair grows back — it's why beauty parlors continue to exist...).

[HairTalk]

We charge for the plucking procedure the way we charge for FUT. In other words, the fee for 2,000 plucked grafts is the same whether it is FUT or plucked, even though it takes us twice the amount of work to do a plucked case. The reason for the reduced fee is that we don't have the same track record with plucked grafts and in exchange for the uncertainty, patients recieve a discounted fee. When the procedure is more firmly established, we will charge in accord with the time, effort, and expense on our part. We have no plans to price gouge, only to charge fairly.

Dr. Cooley, in what way does the plucking technique require "twice the amount of work"? I would think, as you don't need the careful labor of a physician extracting follicular units (F.U.E.), or of technicians creating such units under a microscope (F.U.T./strip-harvesting), the procedure would be far less costly.

Also, simply owing to the still-very-experimental nature of the work, I'm surprised to read it's being charged at the same rate as is the strip-procedure.

[HairTalk]

Patient had transplant approximately 1 year ago. The right half of the donor was sutured normally, the left half was sutured normally and injected with ACell suspension (Spun down Arterial Blood)

NOTE THE EXTREMELY FINE LINE ON THE LEFT WITH HAIR GROWING THROUGH IT.

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Whose work is this?

[HairTalk]

Donor @ 3 weeks
Recipient 17 days

Is this with plucking+ACell?

[montrose]

Whose work is this?

That is Dr.Hitzig