Use of blood to treat baldness is still experimental – 04/25/2023 – Health

Clinics in São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Bahia and Goiás are offering baldness patients a treatment that promises to stimulate hair growth. The problem is that the procedure, called PRP (platelet-rich plasma), still requires studies and can cause infections if performed incorrectly.

The offer of the practice led the SBD (Brazilian Society of Dermatology) to issue a technical note. In the text, the entity states that the therapy is considered experimental by the CFM (Federal Council of Medicine) and can only be used in the context of research.

In these cases, the study needs to be approved by an ethics committee and the volunteers cannot bear any costs.

According to the SBD, “PRP does not have enough scientific evidence for its use in medical practice” and more research is needed to evaluate its effectiveness in the treatment of alopecia, as the different conditions characterized by hair loss are called.

PRP is not new. In 2013, the CFM Hematology and Hemotherapy Forum already discussed research and the use of the technique, which consists of taking the patient’s blood, centrifuging it, extracting the plasma and injecting it into the area of ​​interest with the expectation of stimulating tissue healing.

Two years after the event, in July 2015, the CFM published Resolution No. 2128, which stipulates the use of PRP exclusively in studies and which remains in force.

Even with the restriction, the practice began to be offered in aesthetic clinics as an option to “rejuvenate” the skin, in what became known as the “Kim Kardashian protocol” or “Vampire Facelift”, and is now advertised in the fight against hair loss hair.

The entities are concerned that the published data still do not support the use of PRP for this purpose and, as the procedure includes handling blood, there may be contamination if establishments do not follow good practices in handling biological materials.

“We live in a country with a very large discrepancy in the quality of health offices and services. If the legislation on blood products is not respected, there is a risk of blood contamination and infection”, says doctor Gabriel Lazzeri Cortez, member of the SBD and PRP researcher.

Cortez explains that the technique is used in the United States and in European countries as a way to strengthen the threads. But even in these places there is a combination with other types of therapy.

“It is not a treatment that will manufacture new threads. What PRP does is create a favorable environment to improve the threads that are on the scalp”, he says. “There is no procedure that once or once a month will definitively treat hair problems”, she adds.

The difficulty of achieving success with a single treatment is related to the complexity of the alopecia. In addition to the most common type, androgenetic alopecia, which is genetically determined and leads to progressive capillary thinning, there are inflammatory diseases such as alopecia areata, related to autoimmune reactions. “These are chronic diseases and the patient must use medication”, says Cortez.

There are also some alopecias called cicatricials. In these cases, the flaws in the hair do not regenerate because it is not a question of a change in the thickness of the strands, but the formation of scars on the scalp.

In addition to the correct identification of the type of alopecia, Cortez recalls that only specialists can indicate the best treatment.

Currently, options on the market have two mechanisms of action. A portion of the remedies inhibit the by-product of testosterone that leads to hair thinning. The other option increases vascularity and nutritional support in the scalp, favoring hair strengthening and growth.