Understanding Hair Transplants and Hair Loss - Pacific Hair

effluvium) with new hairs beginning to grow two to four weeks
later . Hairs with individual follicular units do not grow at the same
rate and may take any of the above three alternatives . They
conclude that maintaining a healthy blood supply to the scalp and
minimizing hypoxia and ischemia of the hair graft during transplant
surgery and for five days postop should increase survival
rate .
9) Dr. Cooley has found that ischemia reperfusion injury results in 600% increase in
free radicals within the hair follicles . This can be decreased by:
1) Giving the patient anti-oxidants such as vitamin E or melatonin .
2) Corticosteroids .
3) Additives to graft holding solutions . Hypothermasol contains two potent anti-oxidants,
glutathione and a synthetic analog of vitamin E .
Dr . Cooley’s current practice is to keep a mini-fridge in the O .R . and placed unslivered
strips in Hypothermasol there . Slivers are also kept in Hypothermasol on
coolers. It is important to keep Hypothermasol cold, and they switch out coolers at
lunch. In this way, we keep the solution at 10°C or less. Thus all tissue has been
soaked in antioxidants for theoretical protection against ischemia reperfusion injury.
The dissected grafts are then kept on DMEM/HEPES culture media . DMEM storage
media stands for Dullbecco’s Modified Eagles Medium. This culture media
contains glucose, vitamins, and a buffer to keep the pH steady . He keeps the grafts
on DMEM-soaked Reston foam at the air liquid interface as opposed to immersion .
He does not chill them . Both the Hypothermasol and DMEM have the HEPES buffer
in them which keeps the pH steady .
10) Dr . Cotsarelis has found that stem cells in hair follicles present as keratinocytes,
which maintain a high proliferative potential and are long lived, slowly cycling, and
apparently immune privileged cells. Topical treatment with RU486 to these bulged
stem cells resulted in hair follicles entering the anagen phase after only five days.
These cells have the potential to regenerate new hair follicles at about four weeks
after implantation into mouse skin .
11) The regular spacing of hair follicles throughout the scalp and elsewhere is con-
U n d e r s t a n d i n g H a i r T r a n s p l a n t s a n d H a i r L o s s
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