ACell, a Current Review of Applications in Hair Transplant Surgery

[Gary Hitzig MD]

#1) The first plucked hairs that I transplanted were in 1999-no ACell. The ones that "took" are still recycling.

#2) The second answer involves the point of no return. I believe there is a point in miniaturization where you can no longer reverse the process. Compare it to a dying plant or person where you can institute all the correct treatments, but it is simply too late. I do not believe vellus hairs are anything more than dead plants sticking out of the soil.
If I am wrong, we will be both happily surprised.

I look at the ACell/Enhanced PRP injections as as "vaccination" against further hair loss with a strenghening of weakened hairs. Like the Flu Vaccine, it works in many but not all cases--Time will tell if we are right.

[CVAZBAR]

So NW7's will never benefit from any of this and will never grow hair back? I guess we can't call this a cure. I don't understand why the reporters in the news always interview NW7's and make it seem as if they will one day get their hair back with Cotsarelis discovery.

[rapunzal]

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.
Dr Cooley

i have been plucking two radical eyebrow hairs that are clearly distinguishable from the others for the last 15 years. im hoping one day they will reach the point of failure.

[John P. Cole, MD]

You could have them removed permanently via FUE.

[rapunzal]

haha .. knowing my luck they will probably regenerate even without Acell

[RichardDawkins]

Oh thats the point, i have a theory about the possible "scars" when plucking hairs.

I think this problems only occur in people who pluck thir hairs because the just do it for the sake of doing it. When we plcuk hairs its because, like rapunzal said to fine tune some areas like nose hairs or eyebrows.

But those people do it for other reasons and not with the intention to fine tune something. So sometimes their hair will stick in the follicle region and begin to develop scar tissue. After some time there will be more scar tissue.

Its because the didnt pluck their hairs in a "clean" way. So i think with combination of Acell we dont have to fear scaring like in those patients.

But thats only because of the ECM and the "clean" plucking.

@rapunzal : I know this from my eye brows and this really sucks. I dont know for how many years i pluck them, but the still come back and sometimes they have this epitelial tissue stick to them.

So if you would have the right equipment you could test autocloning yourself and create yourself a nice monobrow :-)

But jokes aside, it would be nice if Dr Hitzig and Dr Cooley could answer the other questions here

[CVAZBAR]

DR. Hitzig, were you able to get in contact with Cotsarelis to share ideas or is that not happening afterall?

[Gary Hitzig MD]

I have not been in contact with Dr. Cotsarelis yet. Probably my fault as I have been dealing with the ridiculous snow and ice storms.
As I have said, I do believe that miniaturization past a certain point will not respond to any therapy. My goal would be to prove myself wrong--but I will not offer excitement to anyone because it's what they want to hear.
We will see. Jerry has talked about Expanded DONOR at this point, and I believe that to be very smart in his analysis. We will expand our analysis as we have viable results.
As I have always said--Stay Tuned!!!

BTW plucking hairs leaves NO SCARS when performed correctly. There is a learning curve (as we went through) on how to do this. It is not so simple!
GH

[Gary Hitzig MD]

Also we will doing our first case of eyebrow plucking with ACell + PRP and remodeling some of the plucked eyebrow hairs to reshape an eyebrow. Will keep you posted

[CVAZBAR]

Also we will doing our first case of eyebrow plucking with ACell + PRP and remodeling some of the plucked eyebrow hairs to reshape an eyebrow. Will keep you posted

Please keep us updated on the Stem Cell/Acell/PRP injections that you were talking about on the show. I remember you saying it would take you weeks to learn the procedure of extracting Stem Cells from hip. You did say you already performed the ENHANCED PRP, so hopefully we find out results asap. Ive had hard time halting my hair loss and I believe this can be the magic injection to do the job. Thanks, I appreciate your attention to this forum.