New drug could help alopecia patients grow hair

(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

last updated 8 January 2015

A drug approved for treating a bone marrow disorder could be effective in helping alopecia sufferers regrow hair.

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center tested the drug on sufferers of alopecia areata, a disease that causes body-wide hair loss and affects roughly 1 percent of men and women.

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Most of the participants experienced significant hair growth over time, while a few others' hair did not regrow. "It appears to work — not in everyone, but in the majority," Dr. Julian Mackay-Wiggan, director of Columbia's dermatology clinical research unit and an author of the study, told The New York Times. "We need a lot more data on the long-term risks in healthy individuals. But it's certainly very exciting in terms of hair growth. It was surprising how quickly and impressively the growth occurred."

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