Is pilofocus the closest cure?

[Hairismylife]

Why it is always said only Histogen, Follica and Replicel the most promising potential cure in the near future? As I read through the Pilofocus thread, it think it can be the cure, at least should be placed in the same category as Histogen, Follica and Replicel because it may be available in 2014 or 2015 if it is proved. Or I misunderstand something?

[john2399]

Why it is always said only Histogen, Follica and Replicel the most promising potential cure in the near future? As I read through the Pilofocus thread, it think it can be the cure, at least should be placed in the same category as Histogen, Follica and Replicel because it may be available in 2014 or 2015 if it is proved. Or I misunderstand something?

No. just no. It is not a cure of any sorts.

[crafter]

doubt it will be out next year as Wesley is doing a new trial next year.

Defo not a 'cure', although it may create some regeneration, but that's slow process.

My guess is Rep and Histo will never get to market as the results wont be good enough.

[FearTheLoss]

Why it is always said only Histogen, Follica and Replicel the most promising potential cure in the near future? As I read through the Pilofocus thread, it think it can be the cure, at least should be placed in the same category as Histogen, Follica and Replicel because it may be available in 2014 or 2015 if it is proved. Or I misunderstand something?

Pilofocus could be considered a cure if it happens to have 85%+ regeneration

We will know but summer 2014.

[Hairismylife]

Pilofocus could be considered a cure if it happens to have 85%+ regeneration

We will know but summer 2014.

50% I'll be satisfied

[Arashi]

Pilofocus definitely is a great innovation because it's scarless and that's a huge thing. I wouldn't want a transplant that leaves me with (micro) scarring, cause I always want to have the option to wear my hair short (which it will always come to one day).

However regarding regeneration I wouldn't get my hopes up too much. Experiments with Acell have been conducted by other doctors and until now we haven't seen any good results. Maybe some regrowth will happen but I would doubt it's much more than 10%. Of course nobody can tell but again, based on the facts that there's no good result reported by anybody yet doesn't seem too promising.

Artista seems to be a great guy but I do think he hyped it a bit too much.

[clarence]

Pilofocus definitely is a great innovation because it's scarless and that's a huge thing.

Yeah, unlike the procedure you had in Netherlands??? Did you suddenly forget about that one?

[Arashi]

Yeah, unlike the procedure you had in Netherlands??? Did you suddenly forget about that one?

I didn't forget about that one at all. I think HASCI and pilofocus are currently the only options for anybody who wants a scarless procedure (although pilofocus is not yet available I believe). As for HASCI, I still really want to get to the bottom of it and I think I will ask them if they want to do a very small procedure on me, one which is easy to count so we'll finally know about regrowth at HASCI. Cause I can already see the debate going on for years to come ... And if there's really something there in terms of regrowth (which I do highly doubt), then I'll do a regular procedure ASAP.

[Arashi]

You know, I just said I highly doubt that there's regrowth going on at HASCI but I still do have SOME hope. Cause when I did my analysis on gc83uk's procedure it turned out there was still 38% growth 'unexplained'. This could be explained by lack of recipient growth (as we didnt look at recipient), but then again at least in my case, about 97% of the hair in recipient grew. So if that happened to Gaz too, then he might have had about 35% regrowth. Which isn't anywhere near the 85% HASCI claims, but still would be a huge thing.

But anyway, that about HASCI cause you brought it up. But let's talk about pilofocus in this thread.

[JJJJrS]

You know, I just said I highly doubt that there's regrowth going on at HASCI but I still do have SOME hope. Cause when I did my analysis on gc83uk's procedure it turned out there was still 38% growth 'unexplained'. This could be explained by lack of recipient growth (as we didnt look at recipient), but then again at least in my case, about 97% of the hair in recipient grew. So if that happened to Gaz too, then he might have had about 35% regrowth. Which isn't anywhere near the 85% HASCI claims, but still would be a huge thing.

I'm very confident that the key idea behind the procedure is graft splitting and that the net result is no new hairs. For example, if a 2-hair graft is extracted from the donor, on average, 1 hair will grow in the recipient and 1 will grow in the donor. This would explain why HASCI only targets multi-hair units for extraction and it would also explain the massive amount of transections we saw in the petri-dish photo.

When you mention the 35% that you can't account for, I'm nearly certain that will manifest itself in thinner recipient results. But if you do decide to have a very small procedure, it would still be interesting to see the results.

[clarence]

Ok, poor reading comprehension on my part, perhaps. Lack of scarring, like pilofocus for those who have been living under a rock for the past two years, is a huge thing and I agree.

[JJJJrS]

However regarding regeneration I wouldn't get my hopes up too much. Experiments with Acell have been conducted by other doctors and until now we haven't seen any good results. Maybe some regrowth will happen but I would doubt it's much more than 10%. Of course nobody can tell but again, based on the facts that there's no good result reported by anybody yet doesn't seem too promising.

Agreed. Until I see conclusive evidence, I won't believe it.

The picture Dr. Wesley included in his presentation, that purportedly showed donor regeneration, wasn't even taken by himself. It was from a 2010 study by Dr. Cooley. Up to now, Dr. Cooley has had minimal success with his ACell and plucking experiments, so I have no reason to believe Dr. Wesley cracked the donor regeneration problem either.

[JJJJrS]

Ok, poor reading comprehension on my part, perhaps. Lack of scarring, like pilofocus for those who have been living under a rock for the past two years, is a huge thing and I agree.

I'm pretty confident that the scarless aspect of the HST procedure comes at the expense of thinner results in the recipient. If you're splitting grafts, like I believe HASCI is, the results aren't going to be as thick as they could be in the recipient.

Obviously there's still a lot of work remaining for pilofocus, but I guess the big selling point is that you're getting the visibly scarless results without thinner recipient results. In fact, since the procedure is no longer blind, like regular FUE, you should have the highest rates of yield.

[Arashi]

I'm very confident that the key idea behind the procedure is graft splitting and that the net result is no new hairs. For example, if a 2-hair graft is extracted from the donor, on average, 1 hair will grow in the recipient and 1 will grow in the donor. This would explain why HASCI only targets multi-hair units for extraction and it would also explain the massive amount of transections we saw in the petri-dish photo.

This might very well be true. However the reason I think that some regrowth might have occured is that I had shot a picture of my scalp just when the crusts came off and I compared that to my final results. I compared 200 grafts and only 4-5 didn't grow, so that's about 97-98% growth. It then would make no sense to me that in Gaz's case only 65% grew. Of course it might be possible that that's the case, but I don't know ... And also when I judge Gaz's situation with the naked eye, it does seem he did get a little bit more grafts than you'd expect based on splitting. But obviously that's very hard to judge with the naked eye.

We all (except IM, lol) agree that if regeneration occured, it was nowhere near the 85% HASCI always promises. But to find out if regeneration occured at all, we need to do a 100 graft test. I think I might go for that in a few months (if HASCI agrees).

[JJJJrS]

This might very well be true. However the reason I think that some regrowth might have occured is that I had shot a picture of my scalp just when the crusts came off and I compared that to my final results. I compared 200 grafts and only 4-5 didn't grow, so that's about 97-98% growth. It then would make no sense to me that in Gaz's case only 65% grew. Of course it might be possible that that's the case, but I don't know ... And also when I judge Gaz's situation with the naked eye, it does seem he did get a little bit more grafts than you'd expect based on splitting. But obviously that's very hard to judge with the naked eye.

What I mean by thinner results is less hairs per graft not necessarily yield. In gc's case, the overwhelming majority of hairs in the recipient were 1-hair grafts. There were very few 3-hair grafts, for example.

I've never done a complete analysis on the recipient though so I would be curious to see how it actually turns out.

We all (except IM, lol) agree that if regeneration occured, it was nowhere near the 85% HASCI always promises. But to find out if regeneration occured at all, we need to do a 100 graft test. I think I might go for that in a few months (if HASCI agrees).

I think 50 would be a perfect size procedure. Obviously, it's not going to make a cosmetic impact but if your goal is to find out how well the procedure works, that should be the size.