2011 ISHRS Meeting Review, Part 8 – Minoxidil

Note: The annual meeting of hair surgeons was in held in Alaska this past week. The following review is very selective and is biased by the things that were interesting to me and what I (Dr. Rassman) thought could be interesting to the readers.

This is part 8… and final part. Thanks for sticking with me on this!

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Minoxidil as a systemic medication?

Dr. Damkerng Pathomvanich (award winning doctor from Thailand) experimented with the use of minoxidil as a systemic medication on patients. This medication is used in many Asian countries as a treatment for hair loss. He commented that when spironolactone is added to systemic use of minoxidil, there is an enhancement of the hair benefits and a reversal of hair loss in many people. Although the reported side effects of this approach were small, there are still many side effects with these medications (e.g. significant drops in blood pressure, weight gain, fluid retention, rapid heart rate).

These systemic medications are not FDA approved in the United States for the treatment of hair loss, as well as many other countries. Minoxidil was originally used in the 1960s as a treatment drug for high blood pressure, but its impact was not consistent with lowering blood pressure. Many of these earlier patients developed a reversal of their hair loss and many women treated with it developed facial and chest hair.

 
Aspirin and hair transplantation?

A hair transplant surgeon who is also a cardiologist suggested that a person on low dose aspirin can have a hair transplant without stopping the aspirin.