Hair Therapy & Transplantation
Open Access

Treatments for Hair Loss Management

Iaisha Ali^{* *}Correspondence: Iaisha Ali, Department of Dermatology, Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh, India, Email:

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Description

Alopecia, or baldness, is another name for hair loss, which is the absence of hair on the head or other parts of the body. The head is usually at least somewhat engaged. Hair loss can affect a small area or the entire body, depending on its severity. Scarring or inflammation are typically absent. Some persons experience psychological anguish as a result of hair loss.

Treatments

Add-hocs: The inclusion of medications in nanoparticles or microneedling has enhanced the topical bioavailability of synthetic drugs like antiandrogens and phytochemicals like quercetin.

Synthetic medicine: Only modest success is achieved with treatments for the various types of hair loss. Finasteride, dutasteride, and minoxidil are three drugs whose use has been proven effective in treating male pattern hair loss. They often perform better at stopping hair loss than in regrowing lost hair. When hair loss is progressive or additional regrowth is wanted after a year, they may be combined. Other drugs include ketoconazole, spironolactone, and flutamide for female androgenic alopecia. Finasteride, minoxidil, and ketoconazole combinations are more efficient than using them alone.

Minoxidil: To cure hair loss, minoxidil is frequently administered topically. Both men and women with androgenic alopecia may benefit from it in terms of aiding in the promotion of hair growth. After three to six months, 40% of males experience hair regrowth. It is the only topical product for androgenic hair loss in America to have FDA approval. However, there have been reports of increased hair loss.

Antiandrogens: Male pattern hair loss is treated with finasteride. After six months of treatment, there is an average 30%reduction in hair loss, although effectiveness only lasts as long as the medication is taken. For use in women, there is little solid data. Depression, erectile problems, and gynecomastia may all result from it. For women, there is flimsy support for spironolactone. It is not frequently taken by men because of its feminizing side effects and infertility risk. Additionally, it may result in irregular cardiac rhythms, excessive blood potassium levels, and low blood pressure. Additionally, the drug is generally off-limits to women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant because it is a teratogen and can result in newborns having ambiguous genitalia. Flutamide may be used in women, although there is just weak evidence for this and it has been strongly discouraged due to its high rate of liver issues. Flutamide is typically solely taken by women, similar to spironolactone. Another option for treating female pattern hair loss is bicilutamide. It is reported to have a superior safety profile and a much reduced risk of liver damage than flutamide. Periodic liver monitoring is advised during treatment because of the minor risk of liver damage that remains with bicalutamide.

Hair transplantation: Hair transplantation is a surgical procedure that involves moving individual hair follicles from the donor site a region of the body to the recipient site a region of the body that is bald or balding. Men with male pattern baldness are the main target audience. In this situation, bald scalp grafts are implanted with hair follicles that are genetically resistant to balding. Additionally, it is used to cover up scars left behind after accidents or surgeries like facelifts and prior hair transplants, as well as to restore eyelashes, eyebrows, beard hair, chest hair, and pubic hair. In contrast to skin grafting, hair transplantation uses numerous microscopic grafts rather than a single strip of skin and contains practically all of the epidermis and dermis around the hair follicle. The natural growth of hair occurs in groups of 1 to 4 hairs in follicles, therefore transplanting makes use of these follicular units. By matching hair for hair through follicular unit transplantation, a more natural appearance is achieved. There are two ways to obtain donor hair. To restore hair to balding areas, small grafts of follicular units naturally occurring groups of one to four hairs can be transferred. These follicular units are surgically inserted into the scalp in great numbers and in close proximity to one another. The grafts are collected by either one of the two main surgical extraction techniques, Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE), in which individual follicles are implanted, or Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT), often known as "strip harvesting."