MrFox

On 2/2/2024 at 9:35 PM, Hair Tomorrow said:

This might explain why Spencer Kobren and JT of The Bald Truth/Mane Event are reserving judgement, given they make money by approving the top HT surgeons prepared to pay a fee.  

I don’t find them to be reliable on the subject. They are very dismissive and it’s apparent they have not properly researched the topic. 

4 hours ago, Melvin- Admin said:

@DrTBarghouthiYou’re keeping the hope alive. I believe your research is the key to entice more surgeons to try this novel treatment. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of compelling data except for yours and the Stanford research. 

Sorry, but I must disagree. The results from Bloxham's trial are promising. I think Bloxham's work is equally important to any other trial going on. We have hair follicle neogensis in an excised FUT Scar, that would have been seen as a miracle 5 years ago. It is also too early to make a judgment call on how effective the trial has been. I remember a lot of people giving up on the FUE trial at this point as well. I again think we need to check our biases with FUE and FUT. We should be enthusiastic about any research being done and not arbitrarily decide that one deserves more attention than the other, especially this early on in testing. 

16 hours ago, DrTBarghouthi said:

Hi guys,

I do understand the frustration of the ongoing delays and I just want to reassure you that such delays were beyond anyone’s control. 

We did have multiple issues with suitable volunteers in terms of their availability and follow up potential, as well as the ongoing issue of making sure that we have a reliable and constant supply of the medication. In addition to that, it did take us some time to arrange and purchase any missing equipment that we need for a more objective study. It is important at this stage to carry out decent trials - for purposes of being objective and as scientific as possible. 

Having said that, there has been steady progress taking place in the background. We do have two volunteers. One Volunteer will have a full FUE with Verteforfin, while the other one will have Verteporfin injected in the bald areas of his scalp to see if there could be any potential improvement or growth. We have also managed to engage with a suitable supplier that can provide us with Verteporfin. I am placing a test order with them in these coming days to make sure their process is smooth. We have also received the photography device we need for research. I have booked two dates for these two trials- but I will refrain from mentioning the exact dates so as not to cause any further disappointment for now. 

Finally, I have seen some nice recovery photos from our FUE patient who had his donor fully injected with Verteporfin after 2-3 months ago, and his donor is looking good. I will check with him if he wishes for his photos to be shared. 

Will there be wounding in the balding area? Similar to recipient-size wounds? 

1 hour ago, Nikoni said:

I think it's safe to say that verteporfin also works on older scars. Two of three patients had scar revisions.

Yes, and this was expected as well. The original lead researcher, Dr. Longker, said as much in several interviews. This confirms that hypothesis.

5 hours ago, Jay Dunman said:

I agree, people forget that we were all hopeful thinking when Barghouthi released his month 4 updates. We were all looking at one hair that we didn't know was excised or not. It wasn't until his final months of updates that we saw a noticeable difference between areas. I think FUE is better for Verteporforin. No matter what I think it's easier for verteporforin to regenerate a tiny hole as opposed to an entire line of skin sown together. Also remember that let's say a 2cm in size skin patch is extracted. Even if verteporforin is perfected and you get 100% regeneration on the scar area, you'll be getting regeneration ON THE LEFTOVER SKIN, not the whole thing as with FUE. 

 

So FUE regardless of Bloxhams results is where we should be narrowing our focus. Bloxhams trial however is very important to give us a more clear image of regeneration as the difference is pronounced between treated and untreated. 

Can’t disagree more. We should be trying both, don’t bias the research towards your preference for FUE. There is undoubtedly regrowth now in the FUT trial. It’s also narrow sighted because there are more application for healing of linear scars in regards to injuries to the skin, surgical wounds, burns, etc. 

8 hours ago, Hairlossingfast said:

From what I understand, stretch marks involve the breakdown of elastin fibers while in normal scarring this is not the case.  You think verteporfin can rebuild the elastin fibers that were once damaged by inducing a normal wound on top of the stretch mark and injecting verteporfin to heal it?

This is getting off-topic for this thread, so this is the last I'll say about it. It's still scar tissue, no? It wouldn't be on top of anything. You would have to excise the entire stretch mark, and all of the scar tissue, and inject verteporfin, it should work similarly to any other healing process with verteporfin as long as all the scar tissue is removed. Now one concern would be that stretch marks form from the skin being too tight, so removing the scar tissue and suturing the edges could cause the same stretching to occur if the same pressure is being applied (i.e. weight gain). I think it needs a lot of testing to figure out how to approach that problem, perhaps a dressing that unloads the pressure on the skin and allows the gap to heal without having to approximate the edges together.  

49 minutes ago, Der3k7 said:

Based on the mechanism it is described to work through, blocking the scar forming pathways, it seems like the medication has to be dosed after a fresh wound is made so that it is in the tissue while the tissue is healing and when the scar formation would be occurring. If the wound is done healing and scar formed already my guess is that it would not have the same effect.

for stretch marks I hear laser treatment is pretty solid for reducing their visibility and making them much less visible. I plan to try this sometime soon myself 

Yes, it would work, you would just need to create a new wound, you could excise the stretch mark (scar tissue) and inject the verteporfin, the same process Dr. Bloxham is doing with old FUT scars in his current study. 

It is a shame Dr. Hasson hasn't shown any interest in Verteporfin. It would be great to have another highly-rated surgeon close to the U.S. doing testing, especially with FUE, as the clinic seems to be focused that way now. Seems like they are open to new testing with the Xyon topical formulas, why there is no interest in Verteporfin is confusing. Great result though!

Really promising results. In both the porcine studies and the previous FUE study, it took some time for remodeling. It's a slower process of healing. I don't think we are going to have concrete results until a year or more. Again I think we need to remember these are the first tests, we still need more refining of dosing and administration. Hopefully, both doctors can source more Verteporfin soon and we can have more concurrent studies. 

14 hours ago, DrTBarghouthi said:

Hi guys,

Hope you’re keeping well. Apologies for keeping you waiting again. It was a busier than usual period in the last few weeks and I just landed in India for the annual hair conference. 
As mentioned in a previous post, I continue to see the consistent difference between injected and control sites. I think the 0.4 area has been showing the best overall progress- but I also think that we do notice changes in the other doses too. The zoomed out 0.4 area looks to me untouched- but that’s only my subjective judgement. 
I was also happy to see the 0.24 mg area catching up to show better visual recovery and that might be due to the fact that this area had tumescent fluids injected in it, leading to vasoconstriction. This might be leading to a more localised effect of Verteporfin in the region. I have uploaded the photos here. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for future trials, I had one planned for the 24 th October, but I pushed him back because of the conference. I thought it would be important to follow him closely in the first few weeks and I didn’t want to be away in his initial recovery. We agreed to do it in November as he also has no travel commitments or difficulties with regular follow ups. We also have another patient who will be potentially having Verteporfin in November along with his procedure. 
 

I think the optimal dosing is not too far off. I am still keen on increasing the dose slightly- or at least in some areas. 
 

Are you still planning on testing in the recipient area? 

15 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Exactly my point, you’re speaking about it as if doing the FUE is now useless without Dr Verteporfin masters profound advice that keeps being rescheduled. Not against that but use it for the next trial rather than waiting potentially months or even a whole trial time worth. FUE and FUE are both completely different and deserve to both be tested differently rather than acting like the results will be the same on both.

That’s not what I said at all. I agree we should continue with the 2nd FUE trial with Dr. Bargouthi and not wait. The only point I was making is that we should not be discouraged by one interview being pushed back. 

3 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

What’s the progress so far then?

It hasn't been posted yet by Dr. Bloxham, that being said the initial photos are not going to prove or disprove anything at this point. We need to let the healing process happen, and that is going to take a few months. The point is that there is research being conducted, so it is not as if one interview is going to derail the other trials. 

19 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

Science can work in funky ways, we have at least a little bit of proof that it works in FUE, with 0 proof that it works in FUT. Also Melvin and him rescheduled for the 28th, proves my point that days turns to weeks to months. Wouldn’t doubt it if it just gets pushed onto next year at this point. 

We have the current trial with Dr. Bloxham on FUT, the surgery already happened so it's not like we are not seeing any progress.

So, it's just a phone interview today and @Melvin- Moderator is trying to get him to come on the podcast? 

On 6/29/2023 at 3:40 PM, Nikoni said:

Thanks, I understand the mechanism of recovery and the need for fresh wound, I don't understand why it needs to be bigger.

Because you have to remove all of the scar tissue. If it was the exact same size then you would run the risk of some scar tissue remaining. 

On 6/18/2023 at 12:21 PM, Nikoni said:

Why wounds need to be bigger ?

You would need to remove all of the scar tissue. The wounding opens a window in which Verteporfin can change the healing trajectory. Simply injecting Vertporfin into scar tissue would not work. 

@tatasabaya I wanted to post over here so we don't clog the other Verteporfin thread. In regard to what direction the hair would grow, all of the evidence from the animal testing shows it grows along natural growth patterns. I remember in the first mouse study that they had difficulty telling where the skin was injured, which I would infer means the hair was not growing in any unnatural way. I think using some sort of computer imaging and tracking software is the next step here. It's just too hard to tell with the naked eye if a follicle is growing back in the exact location, with same direction, color, number of hairs, etc. 

9 hours ago, DrTBarghouthi said:

Hi guys,

I do apologize for the silence, but I have been out of my office as I’m currently doing all the regulatory paperwork for another clinic in the region and this meant I had to spend the last few weeks there. 
Nonetheless, now that this is almost sorted and I’m back home, I can hope to get the next trial done this month. I have few dates set aside for this month and early July. The reason being is that I do have Vert at clinic but I’m also waiting for a new vial in case the existing one I have is not enough. It has also been stored for few months so I do prefer using a fresh vial. I’m expecting it to arrive next week and then I can give the exact date for the next trial (June/early July). 
I was also planning to be present for Killian’s trial with Dr. Saifi, but we had a delay with the Vert that was ordered and then logistically that made things harder to coordinate as everyone had other set plans for the month with work/ schedule etc. 

I will be also talking to Dr. Bloxham hopefully this week as there are some protocol items that need to be discussed for his trial to also go through. 
 

Finally, I will arrange a follow up with the existing trial volunteer as he is now approaching the 1 year mark this month. 
 

I hope to have more news these coming few weeks for everyone and let’s hope for the best. 

Appreciate the update Dr. B! Can’t wait to see more results and testing in the next few months.

9 hours ago, Killian said:

Firstly Johnathan, this is a private case and privately funded research so you are not entitled to be told anything. 

I have said I will document this, and I will, but it will be done correctly and not rushed. Details are between the doctor's and myself, and will not be disclosed at present on a forum. 

I have provided an update to say things are on hold and will return to this topic when the Visudyne is administered. 

You are welcome,

Best

 

Guys we are all on the same team here! If there was complications let’s give Killian and the surgical team the benefit of the doubt. I think it’s important to remember that anyone taking this drug is serving as a test subject so it is up to the individual to make that judgment call of risk tolerance. Let’s just keep looking forward to more updates with all of the trials going forward! 

12 hours ago, Fabio69 said:

Should try and get Dr Gary Linkov involved, considering his big following

It would definitely get some good exposure, his channel is pretty large and he does hair transplantation as well.

@Melvin- Moderator Do you have any plans on trying to get non hair transplant surgeons on board? Perhaps broadening out to some plastic surgeons might be worthwhile. At the very least the drug significantly reduces scarring, I can't imagine there isn't a cosmetic plastic surgeon who wouldn't be interested. It might be beneficial to see the drug work on a part of the skin without the intention being hair replication, but rather skin regeneration. 

18 hours ago, Hairgain said:

I really don't understand why you say there's no scientific backing to the blood flow theory. Could you please further explain your position to give a strong case for your statement? From how I understand the situation, that without blood flow to the follicles they shrink, deplete and die off. What's unscientific about that? It makes perfect logical sense. If you get no blood flow to any part of the body for long enough time it simply shrinks in size, loses function and dies off. 

Kevin does a pretty good job explaining it here. It seems the theory is based off some pretty biased research from one doctor who selectively added patients to fit his assumptions. 

From my understanding, the blood supply is decreased because the follicle miniturizes, not the other way around. If blood flow caused miniaturization than hair transplantation would not work. The transplanted follicles would also miniaturize, as the area would still not have adequate blood flow. There are plenty of people with malocclusion and no hair loss and also plenty of people with hair loss and no malocclusion.

On 5/10/2023 at 3:06 PM, Hairgain said:

I agree that if a normal chest hair is of a certain type, Verteporfin should regrow a hair that is normal for its skin type and location. However the difference with miniaturized hair is that it was a process of DHT exposure that caused it to miniaturize, but if a new layer of skin is grown that time has not been able to alter that by logic would tell me rather than a vellus or lanugo type of hair being regrown it should instead produce a terminal hair.

The other instance of why I think a terminal hair may not be regrown is the skin tension hypothesis. If there is too much muscle mass and not enough blood to reach the area through capillaries, then there is not what's needed to create a thick hair. There is a real argument to this as men who transition with drugs that change the skull mass many seem to regrow these areas of hair thinning and balding with time, at least partially if not fully. It's like they've reversed the process of what caused the issue.  

Our skulls do continue to grow in mass as we age from what I've read, adding credibility to my position. I think the reason woman lose hair in different areas from men is their skull growth patterns by what sections increase in size with time, thus explaining the female "Christmas Tree" pattern (as an example). However sometimes yet more uncommonly men and women can get skull growth patterns that are more commonly found in the opposite sex. I know a lot of people dismiss this but it seems to make sense from my observation of the morphology of people with time. I could be wrong. Usually a younger person will have a smaller sized skull on average than an older person. 

I mean this sounds like "blood flow theory" which doesn't have any real scientific backing from what I've read. That being said, we just need to test it in the balding area, all of it is conjecture until then. 

1 hour ago, Fabio69 said:

In the 0.4 verteprofin FUE transplant, does anyone know what the percentage regrowth was. Was it 30%, 40%, etc.

The biopsy on the test area had twice as much hair as the control group. Typically, they do not harvest more than 50% of the hairs in the donor area, so that would be 100% regeneration. Now I don't believe from the photos we have seen that it looked like a 100% regeneration, at least visually speaking. But who knows, with typical hair transplantation it can take up to 18 months for hair to cycle and grow in. It may be the same for newly regenerated hairs, they may need to cycle to see the full effect. 

6 hours ago, Fabio69 said:

Amplifica have athree hair loss treatments and one should be going into trial at the end if this yr. But if verteporfin can just reduce scarring and regrow hair then most individuals would probs be happy with that. Lets hope.

It may be that we get an effective treatment, such as verteporfin and then have less invasive treatments that follow. Regardless, its good to see some actual progress lately.