At the recent ISHRS meeting last week in Bangkok, the value of ketoconazole shampoo was also echoed by one of the guest experts in the field of hair loss.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09546634.2019.1573309?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=ijdt20

In a 21-month study for 39 male patients aged 21 to 33 years with Hamilton Grade III AGA, treatment with 2% KTZ shampoo two to four times weekly resulted in progressive increase in pilary index (defined as hair shaft diameter in µm 1.5 cm from bulb obtained from computerized MOP Videoplan Kontron image multiplied by percentage of hairs in anagen phase obtained from trichogram) while unmedicated shampoo demonstrated slow linear pilary index decrease. 61 In another sixmonth study on 150 patients aged 18 to 65 years, 1% KTZ shampoo two to three times weekly increased hair shaft diameter significantly, but did not significantly modify mean hair density.45 A final study described the Accepted Manuscript Page 9 of 33 comparison of oral finasteride 1 mg/day only and 2% topical minoxidil only to combination therapies of oral finasteride with 2% topical minoxidil and oral finasteride with 2% KTZ shampoo for a year in 100 male patients with Hamilton Grades II to IV AGA. Oral finasteride with topical KTZ demonstrated significant clinical improvement compared to oral finasteride or topical minoxidil alone (p<0.01) and was comparable combining oral finasteride and topical minoxidil (p=0.3).

http://libgen.lc/scimag/ads.php?doi=10.1080/09546634.2019.1573309

So 20 years after the 1998 study, and we only got 2 more studies. Not super duper definitive, but very promising. I’m basically convinced to ad it to my routine.

Yes, at 21, you have better than a 30% chance of improvement on this drug.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2223629-batteries-as-transparent-as-glass-could-power-devices-in-your-home/

Some early suggestion it may be working but much of what I see is longer hair

Well to my dismay I am now a member of this community at 23. The idea of balding hadn’t even entered my mind until my mom mentioned my hairline receding a few weeks ago. Now i see it. Her dad was bald at like 30 so i guess it makes sense. Now i go around staring at dudes’ hairlines and guessing what their NW levels are.

My question is: what kind of timelines have people experienced? Does this ever start and then stop for a decade or is it all downhill from here? Do some people only recede a little or is everyone who experiences any MPB destined to become larry david? Id like to keep my hair at least thru my 20s so do i just need to get on finasteride immediately? Or wait and see a few months?

Balding is progressive in men as shown in this link: https://baldingblog.com/need-master-plan-think-hair-transplants-photos/.

The International Society for Hair Restoration Surgeons meeting this year was in Bangkok, Thailand. I was on the teaching faculty and almost 1000 people attended making it one of the more successful meetings in the history of this teaching hair restoration society.  The subject of Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) and its value was discussed by Guest speaker Ramon Grinalt). He reported his review of the entire literature on PRP subject material and said he could not find a single study that proved that PRP grew new hair or resuscitated dying hair.

He discussed some of the more well known studies.  When PRP was compared with microneedling using saline injections, any benefits that were seen with the PRP injections were comparable to the saline controls, when benefits showed up.  Various doctors in attendance did not necessarily agree with this conclusion based upon their personal experience; however, many of these doctors could not prove (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that PRP worked.

In conclusion, I believe that microneedling with saline injections will work as well as PRP, for far less money.