ACell, a Current Review of Applications in Hair Transplant Surgery

[rapunzal]

hey rapunzel,

i met with dr cooley about the plucking/acell procedure on the 13th of january. during that week he had done a total of 5 procedures - he used the plucking/acell technique for all 5 procedures and his largest case was 4,000 grafts on a dude from london. i talked with him about price and he said that it's going to double here pretty soon. it also sounded like it was becoming a stand alone procedure. everything he said led me to beleive he's very confident with his technique. given his rep, i would say this sond like great news.....but it sure would be nice to see some more pics on here.

4000 grafts, thats more than double the October 2010 maxiumum. seems like things are moving quicker than i thought ... including the price. did they say how many days it took to do London4000 ?

[mkamph]

one day, but they were there til 7pm....maybe longer.

[rapunzal]

that is a lot of hairs to pluck in a day. if you assume conservatively that the average graft is 2.0, that means 8000 hairs. if its a 12 hour day its about 10 hairs a minute which is very impressive.
seems like someone should consider inventing a NeoPlucker

[mkamph]

yeah, he's got his own plucking technique that i didn't dig into. i really hope this turns out well. i wouldn't think cooley would lie. he seemed like a straight up guy and his recent post on this forum made total sense.

[RichardDawkins]

Thats simple he is a Gho Shill and also is he happy about a ongoing or not "Lawsuit" where Dr Gho is sueing people who use their Acell/Plucking technique on patients because of

"Copyright Infringement"

You know Copyright, because Gho produced Millions of Lucky People with his HST Crap. Isn´t that great, even if it (Acell and plucking) will works perfectly we have to depent on Gho.

Thats the Gho IronMan aka HairRobinHood is promoting everywhere, THE Gho who has no patients talking about their success at message boards, the Gho whose employees are self not really aware of the success rate.

As IronMan postet at HS, Gho has been preparing his Act since 2000. Well and guess what from Ghos side we DONT got a cure.

But on the other hand Hitzig and Cooley came up with something.

And another thing, did Gho actually talked about progenitor cells in the past?

Another funny thing is, that we see IronMan not that ****y anymore. Well you see HairRobinHood aka IronMan, now you realize that you are not better then anyone and we all are in the same boat.

And its so funny that Gho cant provide anything but at Lawsuits he is he first in line.

[Jerry Cooley, MD]

Again, Dr Hitzig and Dr Cooley, thanks for all the advances you have developed and are in the process of developing for the HT industry.

1)In regards to the autoplucking, would it work behind the hairline?

2)What if one has a thinning crown, would you recommend the ACell + PRP or would you suggest a small session of autoplucking there as well?

3)What is your view in regards of trying to fill in a donnor area depleted by FUE with autoplucking?

Thanks Dr Hitzig and Dr Cooley

Silver Surfer

These are good questions. I hope to have more information to present to the public by October. Like standard FUT or FUE, it takes 9-12 months to form impressions so the timeline is unfortunately frustratingly slow. Most of our work is behind the hairline, at the top and crown of the scalp. I want to see how that works before I do alot of hairline work.

Dr Hitzig and I are completely independent of each other. He is currently interested in the PRP angle and I have very little experience with this. Regarding inquiries about PRP+ACell, please contact him. For a thinning crown, I typically advise my patients to use finasteride and minoxidil. The plucked grafts may be considered in the situation where FUT or FUE are not recommended or desired. I would think that the plucking technique would be a consideration for someone whose donor had been depleted by FUE. It would depend on the situation of course.

We do not recommend the plucked grafting as a replacement for FUT or FUE at this time, if a patient is otherwise a good candidate. These have the track record and predictability to be the treatments of choice. So when do we do the plucked grafts? We do them for what I call the "desparate" or the "adventurous".

By 'desparate', I mean repair cases in which the patient may have had numerous prior surgeries, minimal donor reserves, and we are up against the wall in search of options. I am seeing more and more of these patients and this is a main driving force for my work. By 'adventurous' I mean those patients who never would have had FUT or FUE because they are opposed to the idea of surgical harvesting. They are intrigued by the science of ACell and plucking and are willing to take the gamble in regards to the uncertainty of this technique (success and long term viability). This will be a small niche of patients. I repeat, those who are good candidates for FUT or FUE should proceed in that direction.

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.

It has been an interesting time for me, with widespread interest, as well as criticism and even threats of lawsuits. Nevertheless I am pushing forward because I believe in the ACell technology and plucked technique to genuinely help those with hairloss. It will certainly be refined over time as more knowledge is gained of stem cells and ECM, and methods to jumpstart the follicle regeneration process are discovered. It is an exciting time in our field.

Dr Cooley

[RichardDawkins]

Wonder who is responsible for the lawsuit threat? I dont wanna know the answer cause we all know who is responsable, one of his shills is lurking here. This is so disgusting even to consider a lawsuit or to find this kind of thing funny (like one user does)

Btw thank you Dr Cooley for pushing into the Acell/Plucking thing. I have some questions here.

1) To me it seems that you guys got more and more serious and als confident in Acell+Plucking equals in fact unlimited Donor. Am i wrong with this impression or not?

2) So lets assume for one second, that hairs in combination with Acell are permanent (i personally think its permanent) will this mean that we finally got a cure not for hairloss but for the results of hairloss?

3) When you got more information and good results, will you consider to put in Plucking as a standard procedure besides FUT and FUE?

4) Is it possible to gain more density with plucking then with FUT or FUE? I am wondering about this because when it comes to FUT and FUE there has to be tissue transplanted as well

5) Are you also aiming to get infinite or regenerating donor hair when you use FUE in combination with Acell?

6) As mentioned before, there was a two year timeline till it comes to the conclusion IF we have a cure or not. Did you guys mean the idea about "infinite donor"?

My personal opinion here is, that the plucking technique is THE game changer in the field because everyone has been thinking about " Well what if i could just pluck my hair and insert it in the blank spots" and now this at some point in our life "stupid idea" seems to be legit.

7) Are you plucking the transplanted hairs right now, to see if they cycle? If so could you give a sneak peak, what we can expect. In the case if you witnessed something.

And another thing, and dont get me wrong here, but i think you guys know more, in a positive way, because otherwise you wouldnt transplant more agressive hairlines as stated and also wouldnt go for the "adventurous" kind of patient but maybe iam just a dreamer regarding this.

[Bakez]

I think that when they pluck the hairs they are just 'reawakening' the defective stem cells. So essentially I think both Hitzig's PRP/ACell and Cooley's plucking are doing the same thing - the plucked hair is just a carrier for the right cells for it to work (providing they arent lying about their results). Maybe you dont even need to pluck the hair, we just need a way of getting these the same cells from the plucked hair, then 'wounding' the scalp as if we were going to implant a graft, but instead injecting the cells+ACell. Perhaps this also explains why sometimes more hairs grew around the implanted plucked hair (I think Cooley said this happened a few times with beard hair)?

Unfortunately I think that if this is the case - that both these methods are simply reactivating the stem cells - then the hairs will be permanent but sensitive to the same things that caused them to become defective in the first place, be that DHT or whatever.

[Jerry Cooley, MD]

Wonder who is responsible for the lawsuit threat? I dont wanna know the answer cause we all know who is responsable, one of his shills is lurking here. This is so disgusting even to consider a lawsuit or to find this kind of thing funny (like one user does)

Btw thank you Dr Cooley for pushing into the Acell/Plucking thing. I have some questions here.

1) To me it seems that you guys got more and more serious and als confident in Acell+Plucking equals in fact unlimited Donor. Am i wrong with this impression or not?

2) So lets assume for one second, that hairs in combination with Acell are permanent (i personally think its permanent) will this mean that we finally got a cure not for hairloss but for the results of hairloss?

3) When you got more information and good results, will you consider to put in Plucking as a standard procedure besides FUT and FUE?

4) Is it possible to gain more density with plucking then with FUT or FUE? I am wondering about this because when it comes to FUT and FUE there has to be tissue transplanted as well

5) Are you also aiming to get infinite or regenerating donor hair when you use FUE in combination with Acell?

6) As mentioned before, there was a two year timeline till it comes to the conclusion IF we have a cure or not. Did you guys mean the idea about "infinite donor"?

My personal opinion here is, that the plucking technique is THE game changer in the field because everyone has been thinking about " Well what if i could just pluck my hair and insert it in the blank spots" and now this at some point in our life "stupid idea" seems to be legit.

7) Are you plucking the transplanted hairs right now, to see if they cycle? If so could you give a sneak peak, what we can expect. In the case if you witnessed something.

And another thing, and dont get me wrong here, but i think you guys know more, in a positive way, because otherwise you wouldnt transplant more agressive hairlines as stated and also wouldnt go for the "adventurous" kind of patient but maybe iam just a dreamer regarding this.

1. I have never said "unlimited donor", but rather "expanded donor". Everyone knows that hair grows back after plucking but we also know from the long term observation of patients with trichotillomania, hair can be plucked to the point of failure, although this takes repeated cycles of plucking.
2. Way too early to be making statements like this.
3. Yes
4. Potentially. Requires study to make this claim.
5. I am also looking at this but like Dr. Cole, I am seeing hair regrowth after FUE without plucked grafts so its not cleat that we need this added step.
6. These treatments will always be evolving and getting more refined. I would not conceive of it as "two years to know if its a cure". We are seeing the practical applications of regenerative medicine in the field of hair restoration. It will only get better and better.
7. Yes, but will probably not have information to share about this till later this year.
Dr Cooley

[Jerry Cooley, MD]

I think that when they pluck the hairs they are just 'reawakening' the defective stem cells. So essentially I think both Hitzig's PRP/ACell and Cooley's plucking are doing the same thing - the plucked hair is just a carrier for the right cells for it to work (providing they arent lying about their results). Maybe you dont even need to pluck the hair, we just need a way of getting these the same cells from the plucked hair, then 'wounding' the scalp as if we were going to implant a graft, but instead injecting the cells+ACell. Perhaps this also explains why sometimes more hairs grew around the implanted plucked hair (I think Cooley said this happened a few times with beard hair)?

Unfortunately I think that if this is the case - that both these methods are simply reactivating the stem cells - then the hairs will be permanent but sensitive to the same things that caused them to become defective in the first place, be that DHT or whatever.

This may be happening in some cases but clearly not all. By observing the results of plucked beard in the scalp, and performing biopsies, we saw new follicles clearly separate from the surrounding follicles. We were not simply 'waking up' miniaturized follicles, but creating entirely new ones. The occasional success in scar tissue also supports this.
Dr Cooley