Evaluation of Platelet Rich Plasma for Treatment of Female Pattern Hair Loss: A Placebo-Controlled Case Study

Background: Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) is an autologous concentration of human platelets contained in a small volume of plasma, has been proposed as a potential adjuvant therapy to Female Pattern Hair Loss (FPHL). Despite the widespread use of PRP in numerous fields of medicine, there have been few studies that investigated the clinical efficacy of PRP in FPHL.

Methods: Fourteen female patients, age ranged from 20-45 years, diagnosed with female pattern hair loss were enrolled in this single-blinded randomized placebo-controlled study. Fourteen patients were divided randomly into two groups: Group 1 were injected with PRP using insulin syringe and group 2 were injected with normal saline as placebo. All patients were followed at 3 and 6 months after the last treatment sessions. Of the total subjects enrolled, on ten subjects completed the study. In total, 7 (70%) individuals received PRP and 3 (30%) received placebo. During all the treatment sessions, there were no severe adverse events reported. The study yielded investigator, subject and photographic assessments.

Results: On the basis of the independent-blinded investigator assessment of change in the patient’s scalp hair growth from baseline, treatment in PRP group demonstrated as scale 1 improvement in 5 subjects (26-50%) and scale 2 improvement in 2 subjects (51-75%) at the final visit as compared to baseline (Fig. 1,2). In contrast, in the placebo group were rated as scale 0 improvement (0-25%).

Conclusion: PRP injection for FPHL is a simple, cost-effective and feasible treatment option with good safety profile. However more randomized and multicentric trials with a large number of patients will be required to prove the validity of these results, to obtain these answers and to get more robust statistical results.