Verteporfin HAIR REGENERATION HUMAN TRIAL Dr. Barghouthi *OFFICIAL THREAD

[Fox243]

37 minutes ago, alopeciaphobia said:

Amazing writeup and also I think it's a fantastic idea to leverage this forum's close relations with practitioners worldwide to find more surgeons willing to experiment on a wide variety of parameters and hypotheses related to verteporfin. I hope @Melvin- Moderator can make something work.

One challenge I can foresee would be sourcing the verteporfin. Apparently there have been some major supply chain issues around the drug.

I heard from another user that there initially was a discord group attempting to source it. Perhaps that could be a valuable connection in setting up more experiments.

Yeah, I admin the discord group who sourced it. We, along with Dr. Barghouthi, would be happy to help doctors source it.

[DrTBarghouthi]

5 hours ago, alopeciaphobia said:

Thank you so much for including these shots! They give a much better big picture of the regrowth and scarring.

Was the top left photo taken from a different angle than the others? Itooks like it shows significantly better hair coverage, but it may be due to how the shot was taken.

Also very excited about the dosage increases and recipient area injections!

Thank you. I took photos from the same distance as it it the only distance that enabled me to show the scarring with some detail and not too blurry. Any noticeable change in angle is mainly due to the fact that the areas are just curved along the donor area. 

[DrTBarghouthi]

On 10/15/2022 at 1:45 PM, TheManeMan said:

I'm curious about this too.

 

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

Doc?

It’s not 0.24’per graft but per cm2

[DrTBarghouthi]

4 hours ago, Magic City said:

Thanks for the update, continues to look very promising. In the zoomed out pictures, is it the control sites on the left and the test sites on the right? If so, the results like good so far in verteporfin areas compared to control. 

Yes correct. 

[Square1]

1 hour ago, DrTBarghouthi said:

Yes correct. 

Maybe hard to tell, but do you have an idea what percentage of removed follicles has regrown yet? Is it in the single digits so far or really more substantial?

[DJ001]

Will there be an opportunity to increase the strength of this in future trials and do you anticipate even better results after doses have been optimised?

 

 

Thanks for the work on this, incredible 

[Carlos0]

I really wanted to say that I am very thankful and huge props to Dr.barghouthi for taking the time on trying this on one of his patients and going “above and beyond” in once again update us with his trial and his future plans on the subject. Same thing, for the researchers at Dr.Longaker’s Lab at Stanford for this major finding last year.  

At this point, I am on everyone’s side that I believe this drug is working and it’s just a matter of perfecting it so “Verteporfin” can do its job at its full potential with different protocols, doses etc… “

I mean just think about it, it did work on not only one but two different animal models that would grow scars in the control group when exposed to injury  “mice and pig”, and this question just keep popping on my head, “ why wouldn’t it work on humans as well?”  How are mice and pigs so much “the same” that would only work on them and not other livings? We are talking about thicker and firm porcine skin vs loose and softer mice skin. Also, this animals have a dramatic size differences. Just like anesthesia would block signals that cause sensation, “Verteporfin” blocks the signals that cause scarring  

I apologize for making this comment so long!  I’ve found it very  entertaining to talk about this subject. Before I wrap up, I thought it was worth sharing with everyone another recently update from the same person at “RealSelf” with his verteporfin scar revision experience. 
 

 

Video Link: https://www.realself.com/review/scar-removal-scarless-healing-verteporfin-scar-revision#media-review-12326935-video-71150

( No scar in his cheek anymore but definitely slightly pinkish)

 

 
 

 

[WhereIsMyMind]

No one can deny that >0.4 dosages look absolutely breakthrough at this point. The mouse/pig trials used 1.0 dosages with excellent results btw.

Bittersweet feeling considering im going to have a huge transplant soon... but I guess its still a long way to go before most surgeons adopt it and probably not worth waiting.

Edited October 17, 2022 by WhereIsMyMind

[Magic City]

I initially thought that the zoomed out pictures of the donor areas in the recent 4 month update were all the test areas and I thought that verteporfin wasn't as good as we expected based on the left hand side images in the grid of pictures. But now Dr. B has confirmed that the test sites are in fact on the right and controls on the left, I think the visuals of the donor areas of verteporfin compared to control are unbelievable. The test area looks like there's less scarring, more uniform, and like there's more coverage which suggests hair regeneration, in my opinion. 

[Rasputin]

15 hours ago, WhereIsMyMind said:

No one can deny that >0.4 dosages look absolutely breakthrough at this point. The mouse/pig trials used 1.0 dosages with excellent results btw.

Bittersweet feeling considering im going to have a huge transplant soon... but I guess its still a long way to go before most surgeons adopt it and probably not worth waiting.

When is your surgery? Maybe you could ask your surgeon to use it on you.

Seeing the promising results, but,  more importantly,  the safety profile, why do you think it's not worth waiting?

To me, I think it would be really good that many people are aware of it and cancel their surgery if verteporfin is not used. Price are increasing, surgeons / booking team are not replying / closed their appointments, or booked years in advance,some famous surgeons are doing sugery for free on social media "influencers" but not being accountable sometimes with "regular" people...

The patients need to have more power

[midnightsnack]

Am i the only one who doesn't see any clear visible difference between the T and C pictures across different months? I do see some difference b/w the C and T pictures taken from afar.. but it could be that Dr. Barghouthi just took more grafts from C area.. Of course I want to be excited but reading that this could be the "magic cure" we were looking for feel like we are streching our imagination.. Or am I missing something?

[SkyeBelcher]

11 minutes ago, midnightsnack said:

Am i the only one who doesn't see any clear visible difference between the T and C pictures across different months? I do see some difference b/w the C and T pictures taken from afar.. but it could be that Dr. Barghouthi just took more grafts from C area.. Of course I want to be excited but reading that this could be the "magic cure" we were looking for feel like we are streching our imagination.. Or am I missing something?

In the very first post it showed all the test and control sectioned out in a grid. 

So I'm sure that the Dr has already made sure uniform grafts were taken. 

[Square1]

20 minutes ago, midnightsnack said:

Am i the only one who doesn't see any clear visible difference between the T and C pictures across different months? I do see some difference b/w the C and T pictures taken from afar.. but it could be that Dr. Barghouthi just took more grafts from C area.. Of course I want to be excited but reading that this could be the "magic cure" we were looking for feel like we are streching our imagination.. Or am I missing something?

The problem with such photos is that it is extremely hard to gauge the exact differences with the naked eye. Therefore, we have the tendency to see what we want to see. Understandable , but possibly inaccurate. 

Hard data could provide an answer, but is also hard to obtain at this point. However, a percentage, or at least a range, of regrowth would give a good indication of where we are.

[Hairtroubles]

Am I the only one who is confused here by what verteporfin does? I don’t understand what’s going on here and i read the whole thread?

 

most importantly I am about to book my transplant and Im reading people are waiting to book their transplant now cuz of this? Should I be holding off and waiting to?

[tabtenon]

4 hours ago, Hairtroubles said:

Am I the only one who is confused here by what verteporfin does? I don’t understand what’s going on here and i read the whole thread?

 

most importantly I am about to book my transplant and Im reading people are waiting to book their transplant now cuz of this? Should I be holding off and waiting to?

When injected into a wound, verteporfin induces healing with minimal scarring. What we've seen so far from Dr. B's trial is that when you inject verteporfin into a wound caused by a hair extraction (via FUE), the skin will heal with minimal scarring and even produce a new hair follicle to replace the one that was extracted. It remains to be seen if this process can be done repeatedly on the same scalp area. If so, this would allow surgeons to harvest donor areas as much as needed to reverse balding and even bring back adolescent hairlines if desired.

[WhereIsMyMind]

14 hours ago, Rasputin said:

When is your surgery? Maybe you could ask your surgeon to use it on you.

Seeing the promising results, but,  more importantly,  the safety profile, why do you think it's not worth waiting?

To me, I think it would be really good that many people are aware of it and cancel their surgery if verteporfin is not used. Price are increasing, surgeons / booking team are not replying / closed their appointments, or booked years in advance,some famous surgeons are doing sugery for free on social media "influencers" but not being accountable sometimes with "regular" people...

The patients need to have more power

I expect at least 2 years before the technique is perfected and it is common amongst HT surgeons, for me waiting all that time is not worth it atm.

I will try to have enough donor for a second transplant with Vert though.

[Magic City]

41 minutes ago, WhereIsMyMind said:

I expect at least 2 years before the technique is perfected and it is common amongst HT surgeons, for me waiting all that time is not worth it atm.

I will try to have enough donor for a second transplant with Vert though.

If more surgeons get on board now with the testing and protocol refinement, I bet that it would be ready quicker than 2 years. I’m in a similar situation but haven’t yet booked my HT. Just need more doctors to get involved with this research and testing I think…

[mr_peanutbutter]

which company owns verteporfin? can you buy stocks?

[Carlos0]

Hey guys, hope everyone is well 

So, I’ve been doing a bit of more research and I found more details about the case of the person I mentioned before: 

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He mentions, “The incision line has disappered.The doctor excised all the hyperthropic scar. The scar started to heal drastically around end of day 60.”

I’ve been trying to keep skeptical about it. But, I am not sure how I could find this “somehow fake” since the man keeps updating with proof. I don’t know, but just like someone mentioned here, it doesn’t seem very far off. 

 

[Ganderson]

If this thing truly regenerated a SINGLE hair follicle....its only a matter of time....

 

Seriously....am I missing something? If we can literally regenerate a hair....is there something thats likely stopping us besides time and money? Isnt this the biggest jump forward we have ever seen...

If news came out that a hair cloning company (one that has already been given approval to start doing procedures!) came out today and said they can regenerate a few follicles but not all.... we'd be throwing money at them to hurry up and increase their yield %....

Edited October 18, 2022 by Ganderson

[alopeciaphobia]

12 hours ago, Carlos0 said:

Hey guys, hope everyone is well 

So, I’ve been doing a bit of more research and I found more details about the case of the person I mentioned before: 

——————————————————

———————————————————

He mentions, “The incision line has disappered.The doctor excised all the hyperthropic scar. The scar started to heal drastically around end of day 60.”

I’ve been trying to keep skeptical about it. But, I am not sure how I could find this “somehow fake” since the man keeps updating with proof. I don’t know, but just like someone mentioned here, it doesn’t seem very far off. 

 

So this was not just verteporfin being injected into the damaged skin, the scarred skin was excised first and then injected with verteporfin?

In case of future experiments on using verteporfin on balded areas, this makes me wonder whether simply injecting verteporfin is the right approach, or whether the miniaturized follicle first need to be punched out prior to injection with verteporfin.

Edited October 19, 2022 by alopeciaphobia

[Ganderson]

9 minutes ago, alopeciaphobia said:

So this was not just verteporfin being injected into the damaged skin, the scarred skin was excised first and then injected with verteporfin?

In case of future experiments on using verteporfin on balded areas, this makes me wonder whether simply injecting verteporfin is the right approach, or whether the miniaturized follicle first need to be punched out prior to injection with verteporfin.

This guy did a hair transplant into his scar - and used vert to supplement it. To me, it isn’t really an example of Vert and it wasn’t really closely monitored. I’ve been ignoring his claims and focusing on Dr. b’s experiment … he’s the only legit player right now Imo

[Magic City]

6 hours ago, alopeciaphobia said:

So this was not just verteporfin being injected into the damaged skin, the scarred skin was excised first and then injected with verteporfin?

In case of future experiments on using verteporfin on balded areas, this makes me wonder whether simply injecting verteporfin is the right approach, or whether the miniaturized follicle first need to be punched out prior to injection with verteporfin.

Also, would be good to assess what affect excising existing FUE scars from previous surgeries and then injecting with verteporfin would have. This individual anecdote, regardless of how unscientific it is, brings up this important potential use for the treatment. I reference an earlier comment on this thread made by MrFox which summarises this really well: 

 

MrFox:

'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.'

[WhereIsMyMind]

The mechanism that triggers hair regrowth is quorum sensing - nearby cells signal new forming cells what "they should be".

The healing process of a wound triggers creation of new cells but this process is stopped via scarring which is very important for survival in our ancient hunter gatherer times where one wound that doesn't heal quickly might mean infection and death.

Verteporfin, all it does, is delay or even stop the scarring process of a fresh wound. Everything that is happening is a cascade effect of that.

In theory, this could work in all types of surgeries, old scars or literally anything after inducing trauma via an open wound and Verteporfin injection. The possibilities are literally endless for the whole cosmetic surgery business.

The big question is how to induce quorum sensing correctly to achieve your desired goals in each case. FUE is an excellent proof of concept for what it does.

But there are many ifs still. Maybe doing it in old scars tells nearby cells to grow more scars. Maybe using it in recipent area increases risk of dislodged graft and infection past the safety level (delayed wounding). Maybe quorum sensing could grow cancerous cells instead of hair cells in some cases.

In short, its very promising but we are lacking research... Dr. B work is amazing but this can't be a one-man operation. Hope more researchers hop in or this is gonna take many years before technique and safety is perfected.

[Carlos0]

7 hours ago, alopeciaphobia said:

So this was not just verteporfin being injected into the damaged skin, the scarred skin was excised first and then injected with verteporfin?

In case of future experiments on using verteporfin on balded areas, this makes me wonder whether simply injecting verteporfin is the right approach, or whether the miniaturized follicle first need to be punched out prior to injection with verteporfin.

Correct, Verteporfin will only work if it is injected after trauma. So, it’s (not going going to work) if you just simply inject it on a scar you already have or a