CANDIDATES
How do you determine if a
patient is a good candidate for HM ? Will there be a preliminary test to
evaluate if a patient is responsive to the treatment ? Do you test HM on a small
area on the patient to see if it works before you perform something more
extensive ?
Can HM benefit men and women
with diffuse androgenetic alopecia?
Will HM work on scar tissue
from past hair transplant procedures ?
How can you identify proper
donor hair if someone just started losing his hair ?
Would your treatment work
for people who have suffered from hair loss due to Accutane treatment or Vitamin
A overdose? Or, in general, would it work for people who have suffered from drug
induced hairloss (if drug treatment has stopped)?
Will the process of
extracting hairs and determining their fitness for HM have an problem with
follicles currently active by Propecia or Minoxidil ? In order words, does
someone taking any kind of hair growth agent make identifying DHT resistant hair
follicles more difficult ?
Consider a man who is
extensively bald with diffuse androgenetic alopecia so that he even has very
little DHT resistant hair on his sides and back. Can you give him a full head of
hair at a reasonable cost and in a reasonable time.
The permanent hair at the
sides and back are somewhat miniaturized in men who have extensive baldness. Are
these miniaturized permanent hair suitable for culturing and if so, will the new
hair inherit the characteristics of these miniaturized permanent hair and stay
thin ?
Would HM be effective on
areas that have been damaged by regular use of minoxidil, commonly referred to
as minoxidil burns ? The symptoms usually include severe scalp irritations,
itch, excessive flakes or dandruff etc.
Will hair texture, hair color, or
ethnicity of the test subjects have any correlation with HM
results?
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THE PROCEDURE
How is HM administered?
How long does a patient have
to wait between HM sessions ?
Will HM patients require
booster or maintenance sessions to maintain the new hairs generated by HM?
In their late teens or early
twenties, most men undergo a transition unrelated to androgenetic alopecia from
their teenage hairline to their adult hairline. In a balding patient, would you
restore the teenage hairline? Would you restore the adult hair line? If not, how
aggressive would you go about restoring the frontal hairline?
Assuming that HM can now
yield 60% regrowth consistently from session to session on every patient and
assuming that each HM session lasts 7 hours. How many HM sessions will be
necessary to remedy someone's hair loss condition from Norwood 6 to Norwood 1?
How long does it take before
the new hair follicles start to grow from the time when we first visit your
clinic ?
COMPETITION
Are you aware of the current
"cell therapy" experiments being researched by physicians such as Dr.
Walter Unger (University of Toronto)? What do you think of his research ? Is Dr.
Unger doing essentially the same thing as you are ? Is there a fundamental
difference between your "Hair Multiplication" and his "cell
therapy" or are the differences just a matter of the variety of cells used
?
COST
Would HM be considerably
less than traditional hair transplant? or a Norwood 7 to regain all his hair,
would it cost him less than $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, etc?
DENSITY
/ RESULTS
What kind of density can we
achieve ? Can we have a density like what we used to have when we were teenagers
assuming we can afford numerous HM procedures ?
Will HM create totally
natural and undetectable hair? Can anyone tell that someone had HM done?
Have you been able to grow
cosmetically acceptable hair on your test subjects ?
Were the results of your
procedure cosmetically as good as a typical hair transplant in achieving an
appearance of fullness of hair (overall appearance of density)?
What is the success rate of
HM ?
In the event that some
patients do not respond as well to HM as other patients do, can they still
obtain the same final results by having more HM sessions performed? In order
words, do some patients simply plateau at a lower density regardless of how many
additional HM sessions are performed? Can poor initial results in density be
compensated by multiple HM sessions ?
What is the average density
that can be achieved from one HM session?
Will you be able to create a
totally natural hairline using HM alone without hair transplantation?
Based on your test
results, can you tell us the average regrowth in terms of number of hairs
per sq cm?
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HAIR
TRANSPLANTATION
If I am considering getting
hair transplants from you today, would you recommend that I visit your clinic
and inquire about Follicle Transplantation or should I just wait for your HM to
become available ?
Why are you offering a new
hair transplantation procedure, ie: Follicle Transplantation, when HM is so
close?
TRIALS & TEST PATIENTS
I understand that all
patient info are confidential. But any chance that you can show me before and
after pictures of HM's test subjects? I am willing to abide by any stipulation
you may have with respect to information about the pictures. This question has
been asked almost a thousand times by people in HairSite's forum.
Would you consider
letting 3 to 5 HairSite's visitors participate in your HM trials?
Have you been able to grow a
full head of hair for some test subjects?
Do you have any statistics
or tables of data that quantify your research so far and can you share some
basic statistics with us?
Is there any evidence from
your findings that there is any correlation between length of time of hair loss
or baldness and the success rate of HM? In order words, is there any statistical
correlation, even a weak one, between these two variables? For example,
HM
worked well on 68% of test patients who have been bald or balding for less than
5 years. HM
worked well on 53% of test patients who have been bald or balding for 5-10
years. HM
worked well on 45% of test patients who have been bald or balding for 10-15
years. HM
worked well on 37% of the test patients who have been bald or balding for 15-20
years.
Basically
we would like to know if the amount of time the patient has been bald a factor
in his or her responsiveness to HM?
In your clinical trials,
have you actually covered the entire bald scalp of a patient or are you just
testing on a certain area only? Can you tell us if you have actually cured
someone of his baldness completely in your trials?
When will you release
results of your clinical trials?
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ISO CERTIFICATION
Can you tell us the progress with ISO
Certification ? Has ISO been filed at this point?
TECHNICAL
Will the new hair grow only
where there was once used to be hair or will they grow wherever the
cultured cells are injected regardless of whether there used to be hair or not
on the scalp ?
If the cultured hair cells
exhibit the same properties, will the new hair go through the hair cycle (anagen,
catagen, telogen) all at the same time ? What are the possibilities that the new
hair will fall off simultaneously if they go through telogen all at the same
time ?
Are completely new follicles
created or are old ones used with the addition of new HM cells ? The patent
seems to suggest that new follicles are induced to grow, is this accurate ? If
old follicles are induced to produce terminal hairs, what will prevent the cells
in the matrix from still reacting to DHT or whatever is ultimately
responsible for the follicle miniaturization from continuing to occur, making a
treatment only a temporary solution ?
If old follicles are being
rejuvenated in the process, can we rejuvenate all old follicles regardless of
how long they have remained inactive ?
In HM, are you removing
cells from follicles in non-DHT-affected areas, culturing those cells, and then
transplanting or injecting the resulting cell lines INTO dormant follicles in
balding areas of the scalp to stimulate the cells in those dormant follicles? In
other words, does HM cause follicular neogenesis, ie: does it create brand new
hair follicles which previously did not exist, and is this the PRIMARY mechanism
by which HM grows hair ?
Since you are injecting via
the pores, is the functionality of the injected pore retained after it is
injected, or is it in some way changed or damaged ?
Do the cells injected with a
single injection disperse when injected in the scalp and form follicles in
somewhat different areas, or does each injection lead to only a single new
follicle site, even if it turns out to be a multi-lobed follicle or two
follicles jammed together etc?
One of our posters has a
very creative idea. I am going to quote what he said and perhaps you can give us
your comments?
"Why
couldn't Dr. Gho simply remove the epidermis of the scalp with a laser as in
cosmetic laser resurfacing and then bathe the treated area with the stem cell
bath? In theory you should get decent diffusion through the treated surface
tissue. have seen a number of patients that have had that sort of
resurfacing and their skin looks brand new. As the tissue heals the stem cells
could possibly get "trapped" below the newly forming epidermis and
find their way to the dormant follicles. Or maybe even regrow as new follicles.
It would hurt like hell post op but you could do wide areas at one sitting and
it would be like casting seeds on newly fertile soil. Should get pretty fair and
even distribution and the density would be less a function of operator skill and
more a function of the patients innate ability to grow new follicles".
What exactly is meant by the
U.S protocol for HM? Does it refer to cell culture and tissue-handling standards
promulgated by the U.S government (FDA)? We are not asking you to reveal
proprietary information or trade secrets about your HM procedure. We are just
asking why you use the term U.S protocol. Have you already contacted the FDA or
other authority.
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LEGAL
ISSUES
Do you intend to vigorously
enforce your patent ? Are you aware of the 1996 law passed in the U.S which
prohibits patent infringement lawsuits against doctors who use medical
procedures patented by others after the law became effective?
