Debunking Dr Ghos regeneration claim - an open letter.

[moopookoo]

Taken from TBT forum

 

 

To whom it may concern,

 

HASCI's 85% donor regeneration claim has been the subject of debate on internet forums for a long time, mostly fueled by the fact that HASCI never presented an independent patient case for verification and analysis. As (potential) patients wanted to find out if their therapy works as advertised, forum members started to shoot before and after pictures themselves. Without a doubt, the most famous case on the internet is that from forum member 'GC83UK' who went for several HST procedures in a row and documented them, each time in more detail, as our understanding and information of what was important increased.

 

The research started with people trying to monitor random extraction points and trying to count in how many extraction points hair grew back. It was big news when people found out that this happened in 87% of the extraction points. This was supposed to be evidence HASCI's procedure worked as claimed.

 

However, intrigued by these results, forum poster 'jjjjrs' started looking at the case in more detail. He found that in quite a few extraction sites, not all hair grew back. It turned out that in quite a few instances, 2 hair grafts grew back as 1 hair grafts. Taken this hair loss into account, he calculated that the regeneration rate was not 87% but only 65%. However, he concluded that 'real' regeneration rate might have been way lower, maybe even 0. Because what wasn't taken into account was recipient growth (always assumed to be 100% thus far) and failed extractions.

 

Now these 'failed extractions', he reasoned, potentially might have skewed this number a lot. If follicles weren't even transplanted and hair was just transsected, of course the hair would just grow back. This of course has nothing to do with regeneration, since it's just transsected hair growing back. If this happened a lot, then the 65% hair growing back might just have been transsected hairs growing back, while the real regeneration rate might be way less than that.

 

To find out about this, we'd needed to find how many extraction points there were. Unfortunately this was impossible because we simply didn't have all the photo's. However it was reasoned that the failed extraction rate would be pretty much equal amongst sessions. So if we could find out how many times an extraction point wasn't a real extraction, in his new case, we could use that number to draw conclusions in his previous case.

 

On september 10, forum member gc83uk went for his latest HST procedure. On that day he got 1300 grafts. Most of the extractions were done by Rolf, who?s rated as HASCI?s best technician. After counting all extraction points, it turned out there were 2316 extraction points. So only 56% of the times an extraction was successful. HASCI always claimed that hair from failed extractions always grew back. This means that in 44% of the extraction points, all hair would grow back. But this would not be regeneration, this would simply be transsected hair growing back.

 

Let's see what this percentage means ...

 

Let's assume 2 hairs/graft (it doesn't matter for the calculations). Let's assume all grafts grow in recipient. Having had 1300 grafts during his procedure, this would mean the patient now got 2600 extra hairs in recipient.

 

We saw 2316 extraction sites. In his previous procedure, we concluded that in a random exrtraction site, 65% of the times hair grew back. So we're expecting a loss of 35% * 2 * 2316 = 1621 hairs in donor.

 

So, the patient gave up 1621 hairs in his donor to get 2600 hairs in recipient. In other words, from the 2600 hairs that got extracted, 978 regenerated. This is a regeneration rate of 37.6%

 

We assumed all hairs grew in recipient, so this really is a best case scenario. We will have to investigate how hair in recipient grows, but judging by the number of transsected hairs we saw in petridish photo's, it's save to assume quite a bit won't be able to grow in recipient. So it's quite possible regeneration turns out to be 0%. But let's not speculate here and let's assume the best case scenario. How come HASCI always promises us 85% regeneration while it now turns out it's only 37.6% at best, and possibly even way lower ?

 

 

P.s

 

Attached are the results of the extraction sites counting: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m06tjcp1rztfd6u/gaz.zip

The _LAYOUT.jpg is an overview of how all pictures link together. It's the back of the scalp. Pictures starting with H are the highest part of the scalp, with M the middle and L is the lower part. The Z picture is the part above the ear, closest to the right eye (so the outer edge). The calculations spread sheet contains all the grafts per area.

 

I'm confident that it's pretty accurate. The only trouble I had was linking L3_190347 to M4_190341. It's not correct. But the part that's not correct is relatively small, it are only a few extractions so I didn't really bother to get to the bottom of it. I'm pretty sure all of the other pictures are linked perfectly together and it?s accurate within 5%

[scar5]

Moopookoo,

These days, my attention span is shorter than the time for the drop box pics to download.

 

I will say this. In the (northern) summer of 2008, I went out with a delighted young man who had just been through an FUE plus BHT procedure with a well known doc. (I had finished with the same doc that morning) He was riding that happy cloud we are often on in that post-op dream. I asked him about his previous experiences and he said he only had one previous clinic that had treated him. He said literally, "I fell for all that Gho BS". He was bitter to even mention the word Gho, and perhaps it was that bitterness taht had finally lifted that made him so light headed and was now excited and relieved to be finally moving on. I tried to caution him (being the desperate skeptic I am) and he, being more realistic than me in outlook, said, "yeah, yeah, know what you mean" etc..

 

As it turned out, the subsequent procedure he had was also terrible. In fact, I distinctly remember a poster on hairsite, when viewing his pics, courtesy of the clinic (even the clinic believed it was promoting itself by posting) saying that it "was one of the worst results I (he) have (had ever) seen" - He (my guy) could barely string more than a sentence together nine months later when I emailed him about the result, such was his despondency.

 

But back to the Gho story. This guy, went to him in the mid '00s, I am guessing, and it was a categorical failure. Then to top it off, just when he though he would salvage some pride, our guy gave him a pretty bad looking BHT. It did grow, but like most BHT, it looked like a lump of steel wool stuck to his head.

 

I known that partially dissected grafts can grow again, with less shafts. A three can become a single etc., and it is quite common in FUE I suspect. The best FUE yields still come from two banned docs that used to create nasty scarring IMO.

 

But anyway, thank you for posting this and it's a shame no one commented on it. I guess Gho isn't the Go around here.

 

i certainly am quite funny, that's for sure.

[moopookoo]

Feel sorry for the guy. So he had HT with Gho and then had BHT with some other clinic, both failed?

 

Who was Dr BHT , do you have pics/links

 

 

HRN folks are not excited about dr gho, now I see why, even though FU splitting isn't bad idea if price is right. $2-3 per 'graft' max

[Arashi]

Just wanted to tell you guys, that I did a summary of all we have on Gho on this website: HASCI exposed

Everyone who is even considering Gho should read !

[Mickey85]

Dr Gho debunked his own method by not being able to prove one iota of his claims. Where are the results of the donor 'regenerating'? Where are the amazing high-yield results treating norwood 7 guys where conventional FUE could not? All the results I have seen showed poor to below average yield and there was never proof of grafts re-appearing in the donor in anyway shape or form. Gho is just performing poor FUE with smaller punches so the scarring is less noticeable, but at the expense of a good yield. He is a charlatan, selling snake oil. Plain and simple. Most surgeons struggle just to successfully extract a graft intact with a 0.8-1.00mm punch and we are meant to believe that Gho is only punching/extracting PART of a graft(blind and without fully transecting it) AND with a smaller 0.5-0.6mm punch... Right...

[Blake Bloxham]

Despite all the controversy, I still believe the scientific evidence behind donor doubling is sound. This is why I plan on experimenting with the technique personally. I probably sound like a "broken record," but I believe donor doubling will be the "next big thing" in the field of hair restoration. Furthermore, I truly hope continued study and research helps make surgical hair restoration (via donor doubling) a viable option to those who are not candidates for traditional FUSS and FUE.

[Paros]

Any updates on Dr. Gho's "stem cell" (actually, tiny punch extraction) method at the Hair Science Institute Clinics?

The thread below ends in 2016 without good evidence of results.

Another uncertain 2016 thread:

The most recent info I found is this website "HASCI Exposed", now dead (2017 archive).