I have covered platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy for hair loss here here and here on this blog before. Initially, I was very skeptical about this whole idea, especially since a number of hair transplant surgeons had written about lack of results after their own experimentation. In the past year, things have changed as I have:
- Read more on the subject on surgeon websites and elsewhere.
- Seen informative pro-PRP and hair growth related videos and/or forum posts from eminent surgeons such as Dr. Ken Anderson, Dr. Alan Bauman, Dr. John Cole, Dr. Jerry Cooley, Dr. John Greco, Dr. Sam Lam, Dr. Robert Niedbalski, Dr. Jeffrey Rapaport and Dr. Ken Williams among many others.
- Read a few new published studies in support of PRP for hair loss. Most importantly, these studies have come from different countries, implying lesser chances of bias and implying potentially successful outcomes across all races of people.
I have therefore decided to give this subject more serious consideration and coverage on this blog. It seems like the way in which a clinic makes/derives the PRP can drastically impact the results (or lack thereof) and I will write more on that in future posts, including analysis of the growth factors involved in the PRP.
For now, the below embedded two videos are worth checking out. The first is a segment that appeared last week on ABC’s popular Good Morning America (GMA) program. While PRP for medical applications has been covered in numerous TV programs in recent years, it is rare for PRP for hair loss to get this kind of coverage on national TV in the US.
In case the video does not embed correctly or is removed later by ABC, here are the relevant links: GMA 1; GMA 2 and GMA 3.
The physician in the ABC segment is Dr. Jeffrey Rapaport, and he has a great video on youtube (embedded below) about this, including before and after photos of PRP injections in his own balding crown 19 mins into the video! The last part of the video is really interesting, and Dr. Rapaport thinks that PRP for hair loss is going to become huge in the coming year. He even thinks that many people with limited hair loss will delay or avoid hair transplants and instead come for these PRP injections several times a year.