Thinning Hair in Women: Can Stem Cells Help?

A patient who suffers from thinning hair writes us:

I live in Berlin and I am very interested in a treatment of hair. I have thin hair on my middle parting for years. Partially you can see the scalp. What is the course of treatment and how many sessions are necessary?

We now suppose the patient is organically healthy and reasons like organic illnesses or intoxications can be excluded. Then especially treatments with autologous stem cells extracted from fat tissue for stimulation of hair growth should be considered. In most cases of stem cell therapies one session is sufficient; sometimes a repeat treatment after some months is useful.

At the beginning of a stem cell therapy a small amount of the patient’s own fat is harvested, from which stem cells are extracted. These stem cells are injected into the areas to be treated immediately after isolation. There they can take their growth-enhancing effect. Therapies with growth factors or platelet-rich plasma (PRP) are simpler alternatives, which are able to imitate the effect of a stem cell therapy to a certain extent. In PRP treatment important blood contents from the patient’s own blood are used.

Increasing age, but also factors such as stress lead to an impairment of the body’s own hormone production. The resulting hormone imbalance can have many consequences, including premature hair loss. After thorough analysis of the patient’s hormone status a treatment with bioidentical hormones (Bioidentical Hormonal Regeneration Therapy, BHRT) is planned according to the individual needs, which can provide a remedy. The therapy lasts between 3 and 6 cycles (1 cycle = 28 days) and can be repeated if required.

DDr. Heinrich, MD

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