ACell, a Current Review of Applications in Hair Transplant Surgery

[maripgonzles]

here's some more work by hitzig. the back looks thicker to me.

Wow this looks promising. The back does appear thicker.

[UK_]

"vaccination for hairloss" that's a bold and unproven claim. It would years of using acell on thousands of patients and monitoring how their hairloss progresses. You can't make a claim like that after using acell for 2 years! Personally I don't trust dr Hitzig and I wouldnt be believing in Acell if it wasn't for Dr Cooley.

I believe he used to term 'flu vaccination', to imply that it may help in some cases to avoid or prevent further hair loss, kind of like an alternative to Propecia, I think he makes this on the basis of what he has seen with the use of Acell and PRP as an injectable, that it has stopped hair loss in some people for 12 - 16 months, I put emphasis on the word "some", but after 20 years of nothing, its good news.

Theres no way Acell or PRP in whatever format you wish to inject it however will grow hair in a completely NW7 scalp, taking NW7 to NW2/3 will be a job for gene therapy or HM.

[splitting hairs]

"vaccination for hairloss" that's a bold and unproven claim. It would years of using acell on thousands of patients and monitoring how their hairloss progresses. You can't make a claim like that after using acell for 2 years! Personally I don't trust dr Hitzig and I wouldnt be believing in Acell if it wasn't for Dr Cooley.

[RichardDawkins]

Interesting, lets see if the effect is permanent

[mkamph]

here's some more work by hitzig. the back looks thicker to me.

[HairTalk]

Thanks for posting this video, UK_.

It seems we've not heard from Dr. Cooley, in some while, on this topic. I'd be interested to read how is experiments with ACell are coming along.

[UK_]

[Follicle Death Row]

Yeah I know. If even 54% donor regeneration could be guaranteed then we're all laughing. I'm norwood 2 or 2.5ish but I know I'm headed towards extensive loss down the line. If 54% is legit we can all have 12,000 or more over a lifetime. I absolutely understand the whole buying time idea but I wouldn't take the plunge myself on that basis alone.

If what Dr. Cole has done through his experience with Acell can be repeated on a consistent basis we will not have to worry about going extensively bald in the future. It could extend the FUE scalp donor from 5,000-6,000 to 11,000-13,000 and make strip redundant. Time will tell I guess. Fingers crossed in the mean time.

I wonder what figures Dr. Cole thinks are possible. My main concern is reharvesting regenerated donor; is the yield of transplanted regenerated donor less and does the regeneration rate of this regenerated donor fall below 54% to maybe 25-30%. It will be interesting to see what comes of all this.

[Havok]

there are a lot of men with mild to moderate hair loss. if this works then this is a tremendous advancement and a way to buy more time until a real viable treatment comes along. also, that's only dr. cole's number.

[Follicle Death Row]

Donor Expansion Really Possible?

From what I've read I don't think we're anywhere near a time where we'll have infinite donor to work with but it does seem that with the use of Acell some donor regeneration is a real phenomenon.

If Dr. Cole is really getting up to 54% regeneration in the donor with acell then we've made a big step forward. If it's possible to reharvest these regenerated follicules then donor expansion is real and things are genuinely looking up.

Consider someone with an extensive balding pattern. Let's say up to 250cm2 to cover. They may have up to 20,000 FU that are DHT resistant. You could probably strip out at between 8,000-9,000 given multiple surgeries and add up to 1,000-1,500ish with FUE. I think 9,500 strip and fue for most would be on the limit. Even the 9,500 on an extensively bald head can look quite thin if the hair characteristics are unfavourable. Plus who really wants a smiley on the back of their head if they could avoid it.

However if this 54% regeneration figure is legitimate and these FU can be reharvested then FUE would be a far better method of hair restoration if we only consider the aesthetics of the end goal and not the cost along the way.

Now taking the 20,000 DHT resistant FU figure, if 8,000 were extracted (over multiple megasessions, maybe over 3 sessions and 6 months) and 4,320 were regenerated there would be 16,320 left in the donor area. Not bad. If later a further 5,000 were again extracted over a number of megassessions (Is 2500 possible in a day?), 2700 would supposedly regenerate. Crazy numbers, crazy time, crazy money but maybe it's possible.

That would result in 13,000 FU moved. Assuming a 90% yield that would be 11,700 growing. 14,020 would remain in the donor which originally had 20,000. This equates to a net extraction of 30% which I feel is a reasonable figure which will not give the appearance of donor thinning or that moth eaten look.

In a nutshell 13,000 FU is the limit to what I imagine could be achieved by FUE if this 54% regeneration figure plays out in practice and reharvesting can occur. I'd like to think that in 5-7 years time this could be potentially be possible but it's perhaps overly optimistic. I don't see Aderans or anyone cracking it until the end of the decade at the earliest. More like 2025 than 2015 for hair cloning if I had to guess.

However perhaps upon reharvesting the regenerated donor the regeneration figure drops. Who knows really. I've never heard of anyone who got more than London Lad, 11282FU (2 strips). Even he said he'd think about filling in a few spots when HM comes along and I'd guess he was only a norwood 5a pushing 6. I'd imagine the results he has achieved are unobtainable for 99% of us unless donor regeneration becomes a reality.

13,000 FU by FUE would be unreal. Wonder would that be around $130,000 dollars. We could see a load of bank heists in 2017. The suspect is bald...

Actually this all kind of sounds like Ray Kurzweil and the "law of accelerating returns". It won't happpen that fast. We got minox in what '88 and finasteride in '98 and dick all since. 2030 for the cloning/unlimited donor.

[Havok]

dr. cooley and others have been working on this for 2 and half years and we still don't know whether hair follicles will cycle normally? i mean yeah at first dr. cooley had low success rate but what about the few that survived? did they cycle normally? the wait is killing me.

[SilverSurfer]

I agree with what you said. Hopefully the reports Cooley and Hitzig will issue some time this year include more facts and data in order to prove their work is legit and others pursue their path just like it happened with FUE and Dr Woods. I mean if the whole plucking story really works, I guess I have found the solution to my problem. We all have...it will only be a matter of time before more data becomes available and it becomes clear it is not the typical swithch and bait.

[splitting hairs]

Ok so first off I agree with dr cole that we need a study to show that plucked hair, as done by dr Cooley, grows back in the donor as you can't just assume that it does.

Secondly, Dr cole cannot say extracting grafts by FUE is essentially the same as plucking hairs with tweezers because it simply is not and anyone with any knowledge about hair restoration will tell you this.

I think he is right to be sceptical until we have data but without trialing this we will never have data.

Personally I think the work he's done with donor regrowth and FUE is impressive and the more docs working on this the better it is. But I would still opt for plucking.

[SilverSurfer]

As a matter of fact, I will do everyone here the favor and I will be the one to ignore you before you grab a gun and end up going on a shooting spree.

At last you will shut up. Now the grown ups can keep discussing these important advances.

[UK_]

Nothing wrong in asking a question take it easy guys...

well... Dr Cole's summary on the one hand looks demoralising and on the other very positive... 54%! Nice one... lets just hope recipient remains above that percentage then the proof of concept is here!

Come on Aderans show us ye cards aswel