Dr Joe Greco of Greco Med Group Florida claiming 80% success rate with infusing growth factors from ones own platelets into the scalp to regenerate hair. Really 80%? How can doctors make claims like this? Any safe treatment that had an 80% success rate would be duplicated all over the world wouldn’t it?
Anyone can claim anything. It may be true. I do not know. I cannot verify the claim personally. If these treatments do work, you are likely correct in stating that these treatments would be duplicated and offered all over the world – especially because it is such an easy and inexpensive thing to do. By that I mean, in essence, someone takes a vial of your blood and spins it down in a centrifuge to separate out the PRP (platelet rich plasma) from the red blood cells and injects it back to your body part (scalp).
I do know many doctors advertise Platelet Rich Plasma PRP therapy and discuss it in terms of regenerative therapy or stem cell therapy which definitely catches the attention of many consumers.
I also know that there are many articles and journals that publish positive results of these types of therapy but I have not found one that is truly a well designed research that has been replicated. What I mean by a well designed research, is called a Double Blind Randomized Control Study.
When reports come out that you get an 80% improvement, what does that mean? An improvement of what? If we get 90% of the hair to grow without it, does that mean that we can get 98% of the hair from a hair transplant to grow instead of 90% with it? There has never been a study done that shows value. We would have no objection to using PRP and may even do so one day, but as I believe that if a doctor needs to get an 80% improvement of their results by using PRP, then they have a problem in their technique and I would doubt that PRP would help them solve such a deficiency. I have seen doctors inject PRP into the scalp of balding men and women, but they do not do this as a charity, they charge for it, and charge they do. If we start injecting PRP which would be a push, we would not charge for it unless we demonstrated real value.
I’ll defend Dr Greco here since the tone of this site is generally (and rightly so) skeptical. I’ve been getting treatments twice a year for 5 years with Dr Greco in Florida. When I started them, I was shedding a lot of hair, I could see progressive thinning setting in, my scalp itched, and my hair felt oily and flat. Now, five years later, my hair does not shed, it’s thicker than it was before, my scalp feels great, and my hair is shiny and has amazing body. Also, I am not on any other treatments at all. The treatment did not regrow all the hair in my receded hairline but it did make a fairly significant improvement in my hair.
Now, having said all that, I can see why this has not caught fire in the hair loss world. For one, it’s expensive. Yes, taking your blood out and re-injecting it sounds simple, but as I understand it there are parts of the centrifuge that is used to process the PRP that are very expensive and cannot be reused from patient to patient due to health risks. The treatment I get costs over $1,000 plus I have to pay to travel to Florida by plane, get a hotel, a rental car, etc. This is not something that most people can likely afford to do twice a year. Second, it’s not a miracle treatment. I have noticed that the more treatments I have the more benefit I get. The first treatment provided some improvement but I think a lot of people might give up based on the so-so results of the initial treatment. When you look at all the costs most people would probably just opt for Propecia, which is cheaper and is very effective for most people.
“Let me mention a different perspective. The medical literature isfairly devoid of results of controlled trials of platelet-rich plasma(PRP) injections in the treatment of androgenetic alopecia. In fact,the largest trial – published by authors in Greece- was anoncontrolled prospective cohort study of 20 patients published in theJournal of Cutaneous and Aesthetic Surgery in 2014. This study, whichis freely available to the public athttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25722600(hit the full text link inthe upper right hand corner to obtain the article), does suggest apositive effect of PRP injections and make the argument for controlledstudies. It would be valuable to the scientific community for thoseclinicians who believe that they are achieving success with PRPinjections to conduct a controlled trial that could then be evaluatedand published in a peer-reviewed journal. In fact, they could evenconduct the study as a multicenter (ie multisite) study and supportthe study themselves or seek some grant funding (although it would notbe costly as all activities except for the PRP seem to be clinicianactivities where costs can be waived).
As Dr Rassman notes, participants in such a trial (as it remains aninvestigational treatment) should not be charged for participation –and, it may be helpful to offer those patients in the “placebo”treatment a full course of PRP injections if – after the trial iscompleted – the PRP is shown to be successful (both statisticallysignificant and clinically meaningful results). Such clinicians wouldbe leaders in the field. I highly doubt that the cost of PRP is areason it has not gained popularity as the comparison group is not useof Propecia but hair transplants, which cost thousands of dollars andalmost always exceed the cost of 3-4 sessions of PRP.