NEEDLE-JABBING TREATMENT SEEN AS HAIR TREATMENT HOPE BY 2010
In the United Kingdom, accelerated hair loss or baldness has not been a laughing matter for decades. This is why a particular research regarding a potential baldness cure has been funded by nearly 1.9 million pounds sterling of taxpayer’s dough.
In the United Kingdom, it has been estimated that there are about 7.9 million bald individuals. The problem is so serious that dubious products are coming in the Internet markets since the early nineties. Now that a medical breakthrough is scheduled to occur in the year 2010, these dubious and potentially dangerous products will have an intense and ferocious rival.
THE TECHNIQUE
The technique itself focuses directly on a small section of the human scalp called the “dermal papilla”. This section can be located underneath the actual hair follicles, and are actually responsible for the regeneration of thick and beautiful hair.
According to Dr. Paul Kemp, a biochemist:
“There is huge potential in the market. Analysts estimate that a good baldness treatment could be worth [pounds sterling] 1billion a year in Britain and many times that worldwide. We aim to have the product on the market by 2010.”
“Some time in the future, baldness will be a choice rather than something you have to suffer. Any bald people will have chosen to be bald.”
THE PROCEDURE
The procedure is explained by Alexey Morton, a practicing dermatologist in London:
“The hair is taken from the side of the head, where the follicles tend to live longer - and so produce hair later in life - than those on the top of the scalp.”
“The sample is then taken to the lab, where the dermal papilla cells are separated and coaxed into multiplying. After two months, the patient returns to the clinic to have the lab-grown cells injected into his bald patch.”
THE INJECTIONS
Unlike other treatments, which are selective of the patients that can undergo the procedure, the new needle-jabbing approach does not choose its patients.
However, there is a catch. The catch is this- a typical head bereft of hair would require over a thousand injections. Because specific areas must be targeted by the procedure, the hairs will sprout only in strategically penetrated spots.
Larger trials are underway as the British government is continuously streaming in the funding required for such an undertaking. Current tests reveal that there is a 70% success rate for hair growth.
This means that the approach is only successful in hair growth and not in thick hair growth. Many are hopeful that this procedure would finally be the remedy for balding, because it is non-invasive and offers a glimmer of hope for those who do not like their shiny heads.
Just how many cells are required for hair growth in just one spot? The current number of cells required is at least 10,000. That means the actual number after the procedure is done may approach more than a million cells. This is how complex and complicated hair growth is- but it just shows how serious people are about regaining their lost confidence in themselves and in their outward appearance.
