Verteporfin HAIR REGENERATION HUMAN TRIAL Dr. Barghouthi *OFFICIAL THREAD

[Magic City]

On 9/20/2022 at 4:54 AM, WhereIsMyMind said:

That said, creativity exists, you could potentially wound an area on purpose that is scarred and treat with verteporfin and something might happen.

It would be really interesting to see if old FUE/FUT scars can be treated with verteporfin (wounding the scar tissue) and if the skin 'remembers' what was there before the scar tissue formed from an FUE or FUT procedure, healing with the original skin and possibly hair. There's some interest in scar healing from verteporfin amongst individuals outside of the hairloss community who have scars from other causes like injury, other surgeries, acne etc. 

[sr1486]

10 hours ago, Magic City said:

It would be really interesting to see if old FUE/FUT scars can be treated with verteporfin (wounding the scar tissue) and if the skin 'remembers' what was there before the scar tissue formed from an FUE or FUT procedure, healing with the original skin and possibly hair. There's some interest in scar healing from verteporfin amongst individuals outside of the hairloss community who have scars from other causes like injury, other surgeries, acne etc. 

I have a keloid scar from my FUT which has caused me lots of stress and is kind of putting a romantic life on hold.

I really hope verteporfin will allow this scar to be removed and heal without one

[Ganderson]

When is the next update? Two weeks from Saturday? 
 

we really need Dr B to shave the head down with a 0 guard and also take some photos from further away… 

[WhereIsMyMind]

16 hours ago, Ganderson said:

When is the next update? Two weeks from Saturday? 
 

we really need Dr B to shave the head down with a 0 guard and also take some photos from further away… 

what's bad about the current zoomed images? whats the point of zooming out? also what does shaving accomplish? 

the only thing we care is if extracted follicles regrew in place

I agree it could be better documented tho. I think a good idea would be to make a small dot tattoo on every extracted follicle so if a hair appears in a dotted area we know its 100% magic regrowth. Currently its hard to discern which is which but maybe doctor B has it tracked more closely.

Edited September 22, 2022 by WhereIsMyMind

[MrFox]

On 9/19/2022 at 1:49 PM, sirlancelot__ said:

Hey @DrTBarghouthiThank you much for thorough updates and the open communication on this forum.  There seems to be some confusion whether this treatment is possible for people who have had transplants in the past with hope to cure depleted doner area & scarring. OR is this thought to work on new extracted doner area in which this treatment would be in conjuction with the transplant process ONLY; therefore meaning this treatment would only be useful for those who plan on future transplant and hope to reduce scarring as opposed to cure scarring of past transplants. THANKS. 

So I wanted to comment on this post because I feel it has come up multiple times in the discord chat as well as on this forum. There is a lot of speculation around what efficacy this drug will have on existing scars, and there are definitely those that are solely interested in verteporfin for scar revision. I think the only credible information we have at this point is from the lead researcher on the Stanford studies,  Dr. Michael Longaker. I am highly skeptical of anybody saying it won't work, because no one has tested it in that capacity! I personally believe the researchers at Stanford have a much better understanding than all of us on the underlying mechanisms involved, and until there is proof to the contrary, I will continue to default to the research and information coming from them.

I have posted quotes directly from Dr. Longaker below: 

Quote from New York Times article:

"His imagination soared. He might be able to prevent scars with a few quick injections of verteporfin. And there was no reason to think he couldn’t go even farther. A patient who had a disabling and disfiguring scar could go to a surgeon who could dab the scar with lidocaine to numb the skin, cut open the scar, inject verteporfin around the edges, and close the wound. Would it reheal without the scar?" https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/health/surgery-scar.html

Another quote from an interview on radio health journal:

"This person lives a long time. Some people have many scars. So this would not only be an injection of Verteporfin when  the surgeon is closing the incision at the end of the operation, but now you can say, oh, what about all those other scars that have existed for a long time? So one could imagine lidocaine cream being put on the scar, or injection of lidocaine, come back in about 20 minutes and the surgeon excises the scar under local anesthesia in the office, and then injects Verteporfin and the closure, and then it's closed. So there's many, many, many millions of existing scars that could be revised." https://radiohealthjournal.org/advances-eliminate-scarring/

From Dr. Longaker's quotes, I think it is a reasonable to assume that he believes that excising existing scar tissue and injecting Verteporfin would cause the wound to heal in a similar manner. If we continue to have positive results, I definitely feel that is worth trying to excise a smaller existing scar, such as an FUE scar, and injecting Verteporfin.

Edited September 22, 2022 by MrFox
spelling

[Ganderson]

3 hours ago, WhereIsMyMind said:

what's bad about the current zoomed images? whats the point of zooming out? also what does shaving accomplish? 

the only thing we care is if extracted follicles regrew in place

I agree it could be better documented tho. I think a good idea would be to make a small dot tattoo on every extracted follicle so if a hair appears in a dotted area we know its 100% magic regrowth. Currently its hard to discern which is which but maybe doctor B has it tracked more closely.

I’d like to be able to see what the donor area looks like as as if we were looking at it with the naked eye. I doubt anyone here can look at the zoomed in photos and get a sense of what the scarring actually looks like given that the pictures are taken with a microscope camera - I want to know if it’s going to change the actual scarring profile …. And how it looks to the naked eye … isn’t that generally one of the main points of the experiment ? 

[MrFox]

59 minutes ago, Ganderson said:

I’d like to be able to see what the donor area looks like as as if we were looking at it with the naked eye. I doubt anyone here can look at the zoomed in photos and get a sense of what the scarring actually looks like given that the pictures are taken with a microscope camera - I want to know if it’s going to change the actual scarring profile …. And how it looks to the naked eye … isn’t that generally one of the main points of the experiment ? 

I agree that a zoomed out image or even a video at the end would be helpful. It's hard to tell with the flash sometimes what is scar tissue and what is skin. Even when we look at what we know is scar tissue it can be hard to distinguish when zoomed in. If the area is shaved and you zoom out you will definitely see the pattern of follicle extractions if there is scar tissue. It catches our eyes easier because we can distinguish the pattern. 

[Ganderson]

Yep… to further that point … I don’t think the only thing people care about is “if follicles regrew” - obviously that is an amazing component but if scarring is significantly reduced, that’s also a huge component of what people desire …. If scarring can really get to an unnoticeable place, you could theoretically SMP over the scars with little to no risk and never worry about shaving your head later in life or even while you have a HT! 

[Prof101]

I think the best way we can help with this research is to reach out to the surgeons we have seen and point them to Dr. Barghouti's research - as he also encouraged more collaboration on this. By next year we could have a dozen of clinics trying this. 

I was at Couto and he was not aware of this, so I told him I will send him the study and a link to this thread. 

I have a question to @DrTBarghouthi : how many follicles were extracted from the area that is growing this follicle in the picture? Just in case the drug is indeed causing regeneration, it would be nice to know what is the % of follicles that regenerated. 

If Veterporfin (V) is statistically associated with higher growth from the donor region compared to control, there are still two confounding factors that need to be ruled out: 

1- Is the better skin healing in V allowing existing dormant follicles to grow compared to the untreated donor? To address this statistically, the Treatment area perhaps needs to be compared to a control non harvested area 

2- Is V causing a growth in existing dormant follicles  through a different mechanism? That is even if the growth of what seems to be either dormant or regenerated hairs is higher than non harvested controls, one still cannot rule out this hypothesis that V is better than non-treatment in non-harvested. This might call perhaps for a biopsy of a donor non harvested control vs V-treated. 

 

Thank you for the update doc! 

 

[Phil28]

@Melvin- Moderator 

Do you know when we can expect new follow up pictures?

thanks!

[MrFox]

3 hours ago, Phil28 said:

@Melvin- Moderator 

Do you know when we can expect new follow up pictures?

thanks!

Should be on or around October 9th. 

[alopeciaphobia]

I agree with the many others before me that the most burning question is going to be how many of these regrowing FUs are seen as a percentage of the total amount of extracted FUs. 

Even if we see zoomed-in pictures that do show some post-extraction regrowth, we can't tell whether 5% or 95% of the FUs regrew.

If during a future update, @DrTBarghouthi could shine some light on this, that would be amazing.

[Melvin- Admin]

I'll be talking to @DrTBarghouthi in 1 1/2 hours about his latest update. Be sure to check it out on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh2IST384h8BxFbCysez11w

 

[Square1]

Keep up the good work and thanks for your continuous updates!

[Ganderson]

Just watched it on instagram.... WOW! 

Melvin, I need to ask some clarification points because it sounded like you guys said this, but I am not totally clear on it. 

1) Did the say "MOST" of the test area has hairs growing in it? And its not just a few isolated sites? I mean..... if this is true...you know????

 

2) Also - he said that there has ALREADY been a 25% improvement to the scarring as of 3 months in? And in the pig study, thats when the healing really began because of the delayed/lagged healing of Vert correct? 

 

I've tried to hold in my optimism on this one...but after watching that...i dont know. Its the first experiment and we're seeing such significant results. I cant help but get excited. 

[Ganderson]

5 hours ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

I'll be talking to @DrTBarghouthi in 1 1/2 hours about his latest update. Be sure to check it out on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh2IST384h8BxFbCysez11w

 

Sorry for the double post BUT I think a lot of people didnt realize that it was on instagram vs. youtube given the audio issues - 

 

heres the link for instagram for any who want to see it:

 

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CjGenE3v95M/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

 

 

[alopeciaphobia]

6 hours ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

I'll be talking to @DrTBarghouthi in 1 1/2 hours about his latest update. Be sure to check it out on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh2IST384h8BxFbCysez11w

 

Is a recording going to be available on youtube as well?

EDIT: thanks for the Instagram link, Ganderson!

Edited September 29, 2022 by alopeciaphobia

[Melvin- Admin]

 

[NARMAK]

I am not 100% sure if this is the only place where the good Dr is sharing his trial results, but saw a video by that slimy git Hairliciously. I feel like i hate how he delivers his content but in some ways, having him highlight it will hopefully bring more attention to this trial and getting others on board. 

If it can definitively be proved that not only is Verteporfin helping with scars recovering with pigment, but then also regrowing any fully functioning hair follicles as a bonus, it's definitely a game changing step forward for hair transplants in terms of healing and potential replenishing of the donor area in a minority of areas. 

[Melvin- Admin]

1 hour ago, NARMAK said:

I am not 100% sure if this is the only place where the good Dr is sharing his trial results, but saw a video by that slimy git Hairliciously. I feel like i hate how he delivers his content but in some ways, having him highlight it will hopefully bring more attention to this trial and getting others on board. 

If it can definitively be proved that not only is Verteporfin helping with scars recovering with pigment, but then also regrowing any fully functioning hair follicles as a bonus, it's definitely a game changing step forward for hair transplants in terms of healing and potential replenishing of the donor area in a minority of areas. 

He’s taking the results from here. Shame he’s not even giving us a shout out and letting his viewers know they can get updates here.

[LookMaxx]

2 hours ago, NARMAK said:

I am not 100% sure if this is the only place where the good Dr is sharing his trial results, but saw a video by that slimy git Hairliciously. I feel like i hate how he delivers his content but in some ways, having him highlight it will hopefully bring more attention to this trial and getting others on board. 

If it can definitively be proved that not only is Verteporfin helping with scars recovering with pigment, but then also regrowing any fully functioning hair follicles as a bonus, it's definitely a game changing step forward for hair transplants in terms of healing and potential replenishing of the donor area in a minority of areas. 

This is why I stopped watching these hairloss YouTubers, clickbaity, watch 20 minutes for 20 seconds content. And it becomes clear they don’t really care about helping their viewers but just getting more views. 
 

The only hairloss youtuber I watch is Kevin, and no surprise his channel is nowhere near as famous as other hairloss channels. Good content is boring content. 

Not really fun to be enticed to watch a video claiming a cure or breakthrough!!11!!1!!! found every few days but that probably brings more views and clicks. 
 

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by LookMaxx

[Tiger2050]

1 hour ago, LookMaxx said:

This is why I stopped watching these hairloss YouTubers, clickbaity, watch 20 minutes for 20 seconds content. And it becomes clear they don’t really care about helping their viewers but just getting more views. 
 

The only hairloss youtuber I watch is Kevin, and no surprise his channel is nowhere near as famous as other hairloss channels. Good content is boring content. 

Not really fun to be enticed to watch a video claiming a cure or breakthrough!!11!!1!!! found every few days but that probably brings more views and clicks. 
 

 

Most of these channels also give really bad advice. Matt Dominance and Hairliciosly both have had botched hair transplants and promote Turkish hair mills. 

[alopeciaphobia]

27 minutes ago, Tiger2050 said:

Most of these channels also give really bad advice. Matt Dominance and Hairliciosly both have had botched hair transplants and promote Turkish hair mills. 

I wouldn't say either is totally botched, but MattDominance's does certainly look quite artificial, and Hairliciously just unwisely spent the vast majority of his donor grafts on getting a juvenile hairline and now has 2000 grafts left even though natively he's a NW2.

At any rate, the more attention verteporfin gets the better. The more the information spreads, the bigger the chance that more surgeons are going to experiment with it. And that's a very very good thing.

Edited October 2, 2022 by alopeciaphobia

[Gatsby]

1 hour ago, Tiger2050 said:

Most of these channels also give really bad advice. Matt Dominance and Hairliciosly both have had botched hair transplants and promote Turkish hair mills. 

I have a big problem with these two (and others) the message they are selling is to vulnerable, young men that they must save their hair at all costs and that they have the answers. Their answers however are nothing more than financial kick backs that they screw out of these young, vulnerable men. They really need to give complete full disclosure so as to avoid a massive conflict of interest. 

[NARMAK]

1 hour ago, Gatsby said:

I have a big problem with these two (and others) the message they are selling is to vulnerable, young men that they must save their hair at all costs and that they have the answers. Their answers however are nothing more than financial kick backs that they screw out of these young, vulnerable men. They really need to give complete full disclosure so as to avoid a massive conflict of interest. 

I completely get where you're coming from. Personally i find Matt Dominance the slightly better of the two. He actually does some solid informational videos and updates or hair analysis on some people at times, but just like Hairliciously he's making money from his content by being a "Hair Loss Consultant" and does unfortunately recommend sometimes places that may not be the best. That said, i actually think the fact he openly highlights hair mills and what to look for in a good hair transplant like soft singles etc. puts him well and above Hairliciously. 

Matt knew he got botched, and that's why he's open with his repair. I believe and people can correct me but he's had repairs via HLC who are reviewed on here and a bit in the grey zone, but also he went to Dr Mwamba too. So i don't think he's entirely bad, and actually a decent fellow overall. 

Hairliciously though is out and out a damn shill. He promotes his severely overpriced website to vulnerable guys. His hair transplants ridiculously unnatural and he went to the same place twice! Even after admitting they messed up. Also, he goes "Oh, the trials are posted by the Dr on a few hair loss forums" but as far as i am aware, from what Melvin has said, this is the only place and he didn't even mention it. He did however gladly take the posted images. He's a complete clown imo and promoted a hair mill with a giveaway. 

To end on as well, i don't think Matt says to save your hair at all costs, but his message in particular resonates to save your hair young because his loss was quite advanced. I think unfortunately the first hair transplant severely depleted his donor and he was left with a pluggy looking hairline that couldn't be fully repaired or softened to a natural base.