Follicle stem cells hair restoration trial + Sonicated Platelet Rich Plasma PRP hair treatment

See posts below for discussion on new hair restoration trial and protocol at Dr. Cole’s clinic.

-Follicle stem cells hair restoration
-Sonicated Platelet Rich Plasma PRP hair treatment.

Today we began our first follicle stem therapy treatment in conjunction with sonicated PRP and hair transplantation. We are looking for individuals to enter our stem cell treatment protocols with and without sonicated PRP. We already know that sonicated PRP grows grafts much faster. We also know that the addition of an extracellular matrix produces better healing, an inability to locate 48% of extraction sites and follicle regeneration of at least one hair in roughly 30% of extraction sites. The addition of follicle stem cells is the latest advancement in PRP and follicle regeneration.

@Dr_Cole what is sonicated PRP? I know PRP, but this is the first time I heard of sonicated PRP.

Sonicated PRP is prepared by exposing your PRP to a high energy sound wave intended to lyse the platelets and release a a much higher concentration of growth factors compared to standard PRP kits used in most clinics. Some growth factors are increased by 5 to 8 times the concentration of growth factors activated by standard calcium gluconate. What are the benefits of these very high concentrations of growth factors? Transplanted grafts treated with sonicated PRP will have an increased growth rate, and hair density by 6 months has shown to improve by 50% using our PRP and ACell injections.

@Dr_Cole “The addition of follicle stem cells” ??? where are you getting the hair follicle stem cells from?

This is all new to me but from what i understand the harvesting of “fat cells” is from the patient’s own hair bearing skin but i think that Dr. Cole can explain it better

The follicle stem cells are patient-derived. Dr. Cole takes nine to fifteen follicular units from the donor area and removes the hair shaft. He then turns the complex into stem cells through mechanical means.

First, there are many different ways to prepare PRP. PRP is just a concentration of platelets. You can obtain a concentration of platelets in many different ways. The least expensive way, which is what most doctors do, is simply to spin down a standard red top tube so that you get serum at the upper part of the tube. Then you draw off the top one or two cc of plasma and discard this. The remainder of serum is PRP. The quality of this PRP is not good, however. Others might not even take off the top 1 or 2 cc of plasma. Failure to remove the top fraction of plasma is not PRP, but they might call it PRP.

Then there are kits designed to prepare PRP. We have tested different kits to see how they compare between one another for specific growth factors by doing ELISA testing. What we know is that the concentration of platelets influences the concentration of growth factors, but there are many different types of platelets. Some kits produce low levels of specific growth factors.

After testing various PRP kits, we settled on the best option because we could obtain higher concentrations of many growth factors when compared to other kits. Other kits may be less expensive, but the quality of the platelets in the less expensive kits seems to influence the concentration of growth factors. We want the highest level possible. Not all methods of producing PRP are equal. In fact, some commercially available kits are junk in comparison to the top performing kits. I would also suggest that if your doctor is not using an excellent commercial equipment, and especially if the physician is using a laboratory red top tube, you are wasting your time and money with that PRP. Poor quality equipment is probably why so many patients fail with PRP.

Then we studied different kits to determine which kits best influence density following the injection of PRP. We found that some kits produced a 25% decrease in density at six months, while other kits produced a 50% increase in density at six months. We have not concluded that Acell offers benefits when combined with PRP. However, some doctors remain convinced that Acell does improve their results. Personally, I’m not convinced yet. We are still studying this.

Next, we began to study ways to increase growth factors even greater. We used high-frequency sound energy to burst the platelets. Since the only things we are interested in are growth factors, cytokines, and chemokines, it makes sense to eliminate the rest of the platelet. If you thought of platelets as lemons, we want the juice out of the lemon, but not the pulp, seeds, nor skin. Sonicated PRP is pure cytokines because we centrifuge off the waste products. Also, because we squeeze the lemon more, we get 5 to 8 times the concentration of growth factors that you can get from standard methods to activate PRP. In conventional methods of activation, much of the growth factors remain trapped inside the platelet. The byproducts of the platelet must be broken down by the body. With my method, we eliminate all the waste products of the platelet.

The benefit so far from my sonicated PRP is that grafts grow much sooner, following transplantation. We are also studying whether sonicated PRP results in improved hair density for your remaining hair in the area of hair loss following injection of sonicated PRP and comparing the increase in density to that of standard methods to activate PRP.

We see 80% of grafts growing at 3.5 months with sonicated PRP and 99% of grafts growing at 4.5 months with sonicated PRP. With standard PRP or no PRP, you would see only 30% at 3.5 months and 40% of grafts growing at 4.5 months. Much higher concentrations of growth factors and cytokines significantly boost the regrowth of grafts much earlier in the post-transplant phase.

Follicle stem cells are entirely new. Follicle stem cells are from your hair follicles. In other words, these stem cells are autologous follicle stem cells. We are injecting this alone or with PRP, as well as, putting them into FUE extraction sites in combination with an extracellular matrix or amniotic membrane.

How come nobody has tried this before till now? I thought all this time the biggest obstacle is that scientists are unable to locate/harvest follicle stem cells.

These “follicle stem cells” are only used in the hair transplant donor site? Can these stem cells be harvested and used in balding areas?

Is this stem cell treatment a free trial or do we pay?

Dr. Cole is currently offering the follicle stem cell treatment for $500, but we will be raising the price in the future.

@rapunzel can you also answer this question: the “follicle stem cells” are only used in the hair transplant donor site ? not in the balding areas?

We recently began injecting our patients’ own follicle stem cells into the recipient area and adding our patients’ follicle stem cells to ACell enriched hyaluronic gel.

Are they HF stem cells, or body (e.g. adipose derived) stem cells? My guess is he’s using ADSCs harvested from somewhere in the body like the abdomen.

It’s been known for some time that adipose derived stem cells can be harvested and cultured.

As far as HF stem cells, researchers have only recently (past few years) been able to harvest and culture them. Activated HF stem cells are much more targeted to the hair follicle, and would work much better at growing hair.

Rogerthat, if you read Dr. Cole’s post again, he said " Follicle stem cells are from your hair follicles. In other words, these stem cells are autologous follicle stem cells." It sounds like he is using real hair follicle stem cells.

I too have the same question raised by the other poster, ie: nobody discovered this till now? More importantly, is this new stem cells protocol patentable?

@HMorHT - I think that only recently has anyone been able to successfully culture and manipulate human hair follicle stem cells in vitro. Interestingly, when Dr. Nigam said he was trying this a few years ago, he was attacked and forced off this forum by a lot (a LOT) of people who suddenly materialized in this forum, having not posted here before. I didn’t follow or even believe everything Dr. Nigam was saying – I took it with more than a few grains of salt – but I was still willing to hear him out. The things he would post here at least indicated he was knowledgeable about the subject.

Now we have Dr. Cole making very similar, essentially almost identical claims about incorporating HF stem cells into his HT procedures, and no one is attacking Dr. Cole at all for it. Dr. Cole is offering to treat HT patients with hair follicle stem cells, essentially the exact same thing that Dr. Nigam was offering. I’m not saying Dr. Cole should be attacked for this (I’m certainly not attacking him.) But I just find that interesting.

@roger_that Good observation although I think you know the answer to your question already. No offence to doctors in India but I do feel there is this credibility issue from doctors coming out of nowhere in India claiming that he would develop a cure for hair loss, that s the big difference between Nigam and Cole the way I see it.

Dr Cole, it has been quite few years that you are claiming some sort of hair regeneration therefore could you provide some photo evidences of that happening?
I am currently evaluating an hair transplant and assuming you are able to deliver a 30% one hair regeneration in each extraction site , it would be an easy decision for me and I am sure many others in choosing the surgeon.
Thanks a lot in advance

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Hi Tiziango, please read the article we published on the subject on our wesbite including a photo example:
Forhair - Regenerative Medicine - Stem Cells -Dr. Cole