Dr. Nigam, fobllowing up on our discussions in recent weeks, involving Hairman2, would you be able to perform the following test procedure on a willing patient?
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Find a patient who has at least some portion of his scalp “slick bald”, meaning no visible hair at all. Note that the patient does have to be a NW6 or NW7. The only thing necessary is that he has some portion of his scalp completely bald from MPB. It could be a baldspot at the crown, or a severely receding hairline, or other areas which have no visible hair growing anymore.
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The candidate must have a reasonably good donor hair zone.
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Select a small portion of the donor area, for instance, 1 or 2 square centimeters. (Call this Donor Area #1).
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Extract all of the follicles from this small area. (Remember, this must be a candidate who does not object to this.)
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It may require several sessions to extract all of the donor hairs in that area, possibly to let the tissue heal from all that extraction. If several extraction sessions are required, this would not hurt the experiment.
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As donor hair is removed, transplant the follicles or FUs into a specially demarcated zone of the slick-bald area of the patient’s scalp (Call this Recipient Area #1).
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Perform the above in one or several sessions, as required, until ALL the follicles in the small marked-off donor area have been extracted and transplanted into the specified recipient area. (This portion of the experiment does not involve donor doubling.)
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Wait a while (3-6 months) and watch if new (previously dormant) follicles grow back in the small marked donor area.
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If previously dormant follicles do grow, then they should also be extracted, until Donor Area #1 is completely devoid of visible hair.
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The end result in this small marked donor area (Donor Area #1) must be as close to ZERO visible follicles as possible.
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After about 6 months to a year, when the small donor area is confirmed as “hairless”, find another specified donor area on the back of the scalp (Call this "Donor Area #2).
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Extract follicles from Donor Area #2, and perform “donor doubling” on these follicles. (Note: It is not necessary to extract all the follicles from Donor Area #2.)
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With the follicles from Donor Area #2 bissected, transplant one half of each follicle into the now completely bald Donor Area #1, and the other half of each follicle into Recipient Area #2.
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After giving the transplanted “doubled” follicles time to grow, carefully examine the success rate (yield) in the “bald” Donor Area #1. Since no hair was growing there (because it was all extracted), any successful transplants into this area would represent a clear indication of the viability of the donor doubling procedure.
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And any successful transplants into Recipient Area #2 would also be a clear indication of the success of donor doubling.
This is designed to be the most revealing, controlled scientific experiment to ascertain the success of donor doubling, using a baseline of completely “bald” donor and recipient areas.
It would have a minimum impact on the appearance of the patient, even if success rate were low. However, it would provide the maximum information to us about how viable this innovative procedure can be.
Thank you, Dr Nigam, for considering this experiment!