Square1

1 hour ago, Dragonsphere said:

Yep, and the evidence that we happy which admittedly is not plentiful is that we can regenerate hair in old scar tissue not just fresh wounds. 

Why does some hair regenerate and some not? We don't know exactly, but if the regeneration rate is consistent then as you stated, this would be a functional cure. 

I don't think this is at all a far fetched theory. 

The only downside is that we are probably years away from finding this out. 

 

Luckily, there are some good trials taking place and some more announced. If at least some of them present strong evidence for regeneration taking place, I think the interest among surgeons would increase drastically and more experiments will be done in order to get this information. It will not take long before vp-application will be optimized if that is the case. 

Medical research is slow, so it won't be a matter of weeks, but these months will be crucial. 

24 minutes ago, Dragonsphere said:

I want to stress that I am just theorizing and we don't have all the variables yet. 

Look at page 8 with the gentleman who had Verteporfin injected into a year old beard wound after it was excised. Hair clearly grew back. 

Look at the Dr Bloxhams latest results. The most promising of his patients is the one who had an FUT revised surgery. If hair can grow back with a revised FUT scar, is it that much of a stretch to assume the same with FUE?

The 20% figure was plucked at random. We don't know what the regeneration rate is but if we can do further rounds into areas that did not successfully regenerate during an initial FUE procedure treated with VT and the regeneration rate is consistent, that would result in unlimited donor hair. 

I understand the idea or revising old scars. 

The theory you suggested implied to me that if you have scars from an older procedure and revise them, you could come back later and re-revise the older scars that did not generate new hair after the first revision with the same amount of regenerative potential. 

If that would turn out to be the case, yes that would mean a functional cure. 

3 minutes ago, Dragonsphere said:

The photo is open to interpretation but to me, it looks the same as the surrounding area that was not operated on. I believe this is also the opinion of Dr Barghouthi when he published the final result. If people are under the impression that if you go for a mega 8,000 graft session and expect full donor recovery, that it wishful thinking. 

I am more interested in the drugs ability with revision. 

You have had 10K+ grafts extracted, if we opened those wounds and injected Verteporfin and 20% grow back, i.e. 2000 grafts. You then do a further round which would result in another 1600 growing back. 

I think this is a highly plausible scenario and we also have some evidence that it does work on old scar tissue. 

Laborious, time consuming and expensive yes, but still an unlimited supply. 

I absolutely agree with you in regards to hairmills. 

So the idea here if you revise an old scar with vp, there is a 20% chance it grows back and that you can try indefinately and still have that 20% chance every time for the same scar? Like some kind of lottery?

It would make sense to me that, if verteporfin is actually able to regenerate hair, more variables are involved in whether it does or not. If 25% regens, that means that for those 25% those other factors were in place. It would be interesting to investigate whether we can influence those factors to have a moe grafts spawn again. 

9 hours ago, Jay Dunman said:

You're talking to the wrong people on this forum lol pretty sure 98% of us would donate our time and money to a doctor willing to use verteporforin on us. Hence the eagerness of most of us. We're desperately waiting for a green light to go do it ourself. But why 2 years to see a micro trial again? This is beyond rationale and like I said, fundraising is a thing whether you want to believe it or not. Having a trial and passing it off as successful can be manipulated into huge sums of money 

Who exactly needs to give a "green light" to perform this on ourselves? If you want, you can already do it right now, like Kilian did. 

3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Couldn’t agree more with pretty much everything you’ve stated. Verteporfin could be the cure not with regenerating follicles outside the donor zone but within, have enough supply and you don’t need medication. Only ultra rare cases wouldn’t be curable. 

The upside of just wounding and treating balding zones with verteporfin is that it doesn't require a hair transplant surgeon to perform, it could just be done in a regular beauty clinic where they perform microneedling. Maybe with some instructions on how to apply vp.

I think I agree that the chances of success are not the best, but if somebody wants to fund that, all power to them and I would only lead to more knowledge about the working of this drug, which is good in itself.

5 hours ago, Dragonsphere said:

Agreed, which is why I said for his consideration. 

But the core of what I said still stands. 

If you could keep FUEing into the areas void of hair and the regeneration rate is the same, that would result in an unlimited donor area, regardless of what the regeneration rate is. 

 

When you count 5 cases of vp working, which are these except from the first of dr. Barghouthi? The 3 cases of dr. Bloxham? I find those less convincing to be honest. To me it is not a foregone conclusion yet that vp does what we all hope it does. Luckily, with the trials of Kilian, dr. Barghouthi 2 and hopefully dr. Bisanga, we will have a lot more information in a couple of months.

I however completely agree with your last sentence. If all these new trials are positive, the question whether we can repeat the process on the same follicles with the same regeneration rate will be crucial.

22 minutes ago, Melvin- Admin said:

The problem isn’t funding. It’s usually time. Running a trial like this requires a lot of time to do something that won’t bring any income. 

I spoke to Dr. Ferreira who invited @DrTBarghouthi to speak at the WFI conference. Hopefully, this will generate more interest. Lesser known surgeons may be more inclined to do it because they’re not as busy. Known surgeons usually have a long wait list. The time I feel is what prevents them from following through.

How much time for 1 patient do you estimate this amounts to?

If there is a fundraiser to pay the surgeon for these hours and for the verteporfin itself, while a regular patient that agrees to vp-usage pays for the procedure itself, what argument would potentially be nullified right?

Awesome news about dr. Bisanga and thanks to Melvin again to convince him. Like Melvin pointed out, is it good that he is a sceptic so any eventual positive findings won´t be met with the criticism that he is basically  a fanboy. Also, is it clear that he has nothing to gain from this research since he already is a world class surgeon with presumably the income that comes with it. 

Interesting ideas as well on how to test the efficacy of vp. Not just photos or hair counts, but advanced tracking and matches techniques. Sounds interesting. With such a protocol, any eventual findings will be taken very seriously I think.

I only hope he doesn't run into problems or loss of motivation since he doesn't seem super excited to do it. 

Good development though. If funding becomes a problem for this one, I am inclined to chip in. If that is the sticking point for the dr. Mohebi trial, the same applies. 

On 3/17/2024 at 7:25 PM, Fox243 said:

I'm not sure why people are obsessing over Dr. Barghouthi so much. He was kind enough to let us know that he has dates planned and will do it eventually. Most doctors such as Dr. Mohebi haven't even given a single update. If people want it more rushed, then they should contact other doctors, but people are lazy and just enjoy complaining. There's more than enough data at this point, be it from Dr. Barghouthi's experiment, Dr. Bloxham's experiment, or the numerous experiments done by people such as Killian, KK, Sc0t, SweetLiquor, etc., to either do it yourself or convince other doctors to. 

If Arcturus ends up joining and complaining about the 15k he donated, then I understand. But nobody else has contributed anything, so nobody should have any expectations. 

Although several experiments have taken place, any hard data on the efficacy of vp is unfortunately not yet present. It might be my autistic fixation on numbers, but I think that having these would go a long way in getting the movement ahead. Pictures can be very helpful, but also misleading due to things like lighting, angles etc and are therefore a lower form of evidence.

If a reputable doc would find that a donor area has 80 grafts per cm2, from which 30 were removed and the part that was tested with vp contains 65 grafts /cm2 while the untreated area consistantly has 50 grafts /cm2, it becomes really hard to ignore the regeneration, especially if the following studies confirm that finding. 

Given that your organisation donated a capable device for this to dr. Barghouthi, you must have some credit in the bank to at least ask him what the plans are, right? Especially since he also got funds from the community to do such an experiment.

That such information is only shared with those who have contributed something is understandable and logical. 

2 minutes ago, TV_on_LazerDisk said:

I think it's best we wait and move on, not make negative speculations. As there is no logical reason for dishonesty. We let stress get the best of us. 

In research, presented findings should be able to be challenged with a critical mind. 

1 minute ago, Square1 said:

His first experiment meant that, if completely legit, the (functional) cure for balding is just around the corner. Why he isn't following up is unclear to me. The reasons he gave were not very convincing to an outsider and came across to me as excuses. 

It could be the case the there are just things he can better avoid talking about in public, but really plans on continuing once these issues are resolved. Also, there are no logical reasons for dishonesty that are known to me. He is not making money on it whatsoever.

He could be busy, but I would doubt that. The experiment involves him doing his normal job with just an extra step. 

Sadly, the possibility of some misleading but unintentional mistakes can not be ignored. I don't think this is the case, as there are no logical reasons for it, but who knows. Anyways, it would be crucial going forward to know what the reason of this delay is. 

 

 

 

12 hours ago, Jonathan said:

We need to leave Dr Barghouthi alone, ask for a refund and move on. 

His first experiment meant that, if completely legit, the (functional) cure for balding is just around the corner. Why he isn't following up is unclear to me. The reasons he gave were not very convincing to an outsider and came across to me as excuses. 

It could be the case the there are just things he can better avoid talking about in public, but really plans on continuing once these issues are resolved. Also, there are no logical reasons for dishonesty that are known to me. He is not making money on it whatsoever.

He could be busy, but I would doubt that. The experiment involves him doing his normal job with just an extra step. 

Sadly, the possibility of some misleading but unintentional mistakes can not be ignored. I don't think this is the case, as there are no logical reasons for it, but who knows. Anyways, it would be crucial going forward to know what the reason of this delay is. 

39 minutes ago, Killian said:

Well, I aim to have a fade, so I will be going back in again later this year if required until there is perfection when buzzed. 

Remember, my goal here, is not maths nor statistical "progress". It is the visual art of improvement and ultimately the undetectable which, as with any surgery can be a multi-step process. 

I have a plan in motion several steps thinking ahead, as always required. The verteporfin, if successful will be a component to the process of donor artistry. 

I would argue that the visual art of improvement and statistical progress are more or less the same thing. If someone would regenerate 100% of their donor hair during a hair transplant, no grafts are lost there so in that sense it is undetectable and therefore visually optimal. The only thing is that data is less subjective than visuals and would go a long way to convince doctors to experiment as well.

Best of luck anyways, will be following your journey if you choose to make it public

6 hours ago, Killian said:

Send me a message offline actually if you're trying co-ordinate this too, I'll give you a hand because it can get stressful. 

Edit: but maybe wait and see how I get on first Jonathan 😅 it's early days yet. 

Best of luck on your recovery and growth / regeneration! It is a great thing that you are doing this, not just (hopefully) for yourself, but for the community as well as this gives another data point and insight in the working of vp.

In that last regard, did dr. Saifi keep statistics on how many grafts were removed  and how many remained per cm2? That would give a great insight in whether there actually is generation in the treated areas.

2 hours ago, Nikoni said:

Hairchemist did a verteporfin trial. It seems he used very high dose.
https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxPWt1ZGLKViOFgk0-9LkTQ0MKoQ0oCQGA

Good news!

Hope they are keeping statistics on extracted and remaining follicles per cm2 and will assess them periodically with a trichoscan, but I guess they don't. Despite this, this is a great development of course.

5 minutes ago, sansi said:

Agree, asking critical questions and having transparency is great but not blaming without proof.
I think delays are due to lack of organizational skills and tiredness from verteporfin.  Also Jordan is a small country and  I would imagine it's difficult to find a good trial volunteer. It seems he's got everything else.

The post you refer to, was just Jonathan theorizing about what could be going on. Not even implying bad faith or any wrongdoing from the doc. That is just not "blaming without proof".

Jordan has more than 11M inhabitants and dr. Barghouthi has an international reputation. I doubt that the lack of a suitable volunteer is a real issue.

1 hour ago, sansi said:

While I don't fully agree that he doesn't of us, at least morally. Many people put their decisions on hold waiting for the promised trial results and also there was $15K fundraising, although most of it was raised by a single person.

But I agree that we must be respectful and he deserves that. There are only two docs who tried it, and only Dr. Barghouthi announced new trials. Hope he will do it soon and all this tension will fade away together with FUE scars

The lack of docs willing to participate in trials regarding verteporfin is leading to desperation in this thread. There is a process taking place in which we look like a cult. Understandable but not really helpful. Asking critical questions should be encouraged, not discouraged in fear of hurting somebodies feelings. This is, in fact, science and not religion.

The pioneering work of dr. Barghouthi is great. We can only hope that he expands on it with more trials. Will that happen? I hope so, but there must be something going on we don't know. If you, as a doctor, seen the results you have delivered with a novel treatment that you pioneered, wouldn't you continue with more work as soon as possible? 

On 2/7/2024 at 8:51 PM, Jonathan said:

At some point with what Dr Barghouthi has done, other drs will pick up on it. If we time travel 20 years from now I can almost guarantee verteporfin (unless something even greater came a long) will be used in lots of HTs and maybe even the treatment of certain surgeries that produce scars. 

Well, if other drs aren´t picking up on it now, why would they do it in 20 years?

The movement really needs new developments / successes in order to keep going and to maintain relevancy. Like a poster on th Dutch forum that I post on asked "If you guys are so convinced of this working, why aren't there more developments going on?". I did not have a real answer to this one.

Dr. Barghouthi's second trial starting would be more than welcome in that regard. It has been delayed for more than hald a year I think at this point. Possibly for very valid reasons, but to me they are unknown. In general, you would say that if you are so close to functionally curing hair loss, you would continue until you get there. 

4 hours ago, Melvin- Admin said:

I can accept people giving their opinions on whether this works or not. But speculating about photoshopped photos without proof cannot be accepted. 

If you guys don’t believe in this, don’t believe it. End of the day, no one is gaining anything out of this. You can believe whatever you want too, but I won’t have these speculations running around with zero proof. 

I think the likelihood of the pictures being real is higher than them having been touched. I see no reason for all parties involved to put their reputation on the line for something they don't personally benefit from.

If advanced algorithms show that as well, it would make the case for vp stronger as it would increase the legitimacy of the pictures. In my view, that would be the best way to deal with negative speculation.

1 hour ago, sansi said:

Dr. Barghouthi already has preliminary good results. The only issue is the trial was not very scientific and the photos are not very good quality. If we can persuade him to bring back the first trial patient make quality photos and hair count assessment with the new scanning device and spread the word that would be huge.

And 1 million is really a lot, 200k would be more than enough, so you don't need top tier rich guy like Musk, someone even with high income(but not wealthy) in US can afford that.

200k is enough because it is not very different from a standard surgery, it just has one extra injection step. 10 surgeries can easily be afforded by 200k with different scenarios. That would be more than enough to make conclusions. 

How much is the cost of verteporfin alone to cover a whole donor area for a FUE-procedure?

13 hours ago, Gatsby said:

Over the past 39 years I have heard of every potential treatment, cure for hair loss. For some reason they all claim to be five years away that it becomes a running joke. I definitely would not wait for Verteporfin to hit the mainstream market  until I had a hair transplant. I seriously hope I am wrong about Verteporfin but it is still very early days and it may not get off the ground despite excellent preliminary findings. I would prefer to wait until all of my eggs are in the pudding. 

It takes just 1 vain rich guy to see these excellent preliminary findings and decide to throw a million $ at it to fund all kinds of trials. Whether succesful or not, in 1 to 2 years we likely know everything these it to know about the drug in relation to hair loss. Musk is rich and certainly vain, if you are crazy enough to buy twitter for 44.000 million, why not spend 1 million to have a very reasonable chance to cure hair loss, which he suffers from himself and has taken steps towards hiding / treating? 

I still think the word is not out there enough. Such guys would probably hand out this $1M like candy if they would have the information we have.

36 minutes ago, sansi said:

If doctors don't do trials, there wouldn't be anything good to show. That's way its very important to have enthusiasts like Dr. Barghouthi.

However, didn't Dr. Mohebi agree to do trials ? He said something like "we owe this to our patients" so I guess now it's not about to persuade the Doctor but ask if there's been any updates.

He agreed, but it is not legally binding or anything. If the enthousiasm about vp wanes, he might cancel it himself as well or postpone it indefinitely.

1 hour ago, Melvin- Admin said:

If you’re going to ask a surgeon to spend their own money to perform research, there better be something good to show. Otherwise, there is no incentive. Remember, they’re not making any money and In fact they lose money. 

If we look at this purely from a commercial point of view, what up- and downsides would experimenting with 1 patient be exactly? 

For downsides it obviously costs money to buy the verteporfin / visudyne. How much would that be exactly? I have seen some differing numbers, I thought the estimation that Fox gave was rather low. A customer that pays the normal rate for an HT could provide this himself, so the doc has no costs on it.

Also, the doc needs to familiarize himself with what vp actually is and how to apply it. Furthermore, he needs more time than normally to assess the progress of the patient. Either in person or with sent-in pictures, like dr. Bloxham does. Let's say getting familiar takes 2 working days and the monitoring 1 hour a month. These would be costs for the doctor unless the patient would take part in these costs as well.

The upsides for the doc would be name recognition / exposure and, if vp does produce results, knowledge about dosing and technique that gives him an edge over his competition. 

Would it be useful to look at a country like Turkey, which is famous for it translant industry, to see if a somewhat reputable doc is willing to participate? Maybe Western docs are too comfortable with the way is it and the money they are already making, therefore lacking the incentive to experiment in most cases.

15 hours ago, Jonathan said:

You’re missing one big thing, a lot of those guys are delusional, and want some type of chemical that will turn them from Norwood to 7 just applying daily, which I don’t think (mostly due to regulations like fda). Were at least somewhat less delusional and know that the cure might be something expensive like 5-10 hair transplants over and over. Sounds terrible and only the top 2-5% of earners can afford it, but to me it’s better than having no alternative.

While I do agree with your assessment of the general vibe of that forum, they were over stuff like Stemson and Tsuji as well. Experimental research that has basically never shown any results yet, has to be tested rigorously for safety and faces years and years getting approved and even if that would all happen, easily will cost as much as an average house. Yet, what I can see, no discussion on vp. Maybe it has taken place but it is not prominent at all, while vp would be much more affordable way sooner with a higher likelihood that it will even happen. 

So even if you are into fairytales and wonderpills, vp comes closer than the stuff they obsess about. But maybe you are right, hard to tell at this point. 

19 minutes ago, mr_peanutbutter said:

Now HMI-115 is the big deal there

 

it appears to be another disappointment, kevin mann recently made a video about it

Exactly, there are lively discussions on all those treatments that are bound to fail, but as far as I see, there is no talk about vp. 

Are they just unaware / stupid or do they see things we don't?