Thinking about PRP for thicker hair. Are there any associated risks? I am a 35 year old man.

Thank you for your question. You didn’t submit a photo, but state you’re 35-years-old, interested in thickening your hair with PRP, but you read in a forum there’s a link between PRP and cancer so you’re asking about that particular concern. Naturally, you want to make sure there’s no significant risk like cancer associated with PRP.
I can share with you how I discuss PRP with my patients in my practice. A little background: I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon, and Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon. I have been in practice in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years. I am also the founder of TrichoStem™ Hair Regeneration Centers. This is a system we developed which began with the use of PRP and a material called extracellular matrix which has become a very significant in helping people with hair loss non-surgically for both male and female pattern hair loss, which I’ll discuss further as I review your concerns.
To understand the role of PRP with hair loss, I have to say I’m reflecting on a lot of years of experience with PRP. As a cosmetic surgeon, we use PRP very routinely for: wrinkles, acne scars, under eye dark circles, and as I said earlier, we combine PRP with a material called extracellular matrix for the treatment of male and female pattern hair loss.
To see how people are doing research in the modern world, we often use in the medical field the term “Dr. Google” where everyone does research on the web, which is a fact of reality, especially in the practice of medicine. The challenge is being able to distinguish good, useful information from what is being bounced around without any clear understanding of the source, and the authority of that information. In the modern world, information is often repeated and is given a certain value, factually based or not .
There are good things that come with people having an open dialogue and discussion in forums. However, there is an understanding of who actually participates in these dialogues and discussions, and further, what is the agenda of people who run the forums.
Without getting into specifics,, a lot of people like yourself have come to us have this type of concern. Let’s limit PRP to just to the scalp. We already have enough experience of PRP in multiple areas throughout the body. The history of PRP in medicine began with oral surgery back in the late 90s, then orthopedic surgery, then it went further to aesthetics. Interestingly, there was a tremendous amount of skepticism and resistance by plastic surgeons and dermatologists about the benefits of PRP, particularly the benefits in hair loss. Recently, publications are coming out about the benefits of PRP with hair loss, and remarkably, like the behavior of an entire herd, almost every patient who has previously had PRP injection will mention they had a dermatologist do it. This is interesting because there were a lot of dermatologists dismissing the value of PRP.
As far as cancers in the scalp, you have to think about hair as a skin appendage, which means you have to think of various types of skin cancers and their relative risks. Relatively risk for skin cancers are more related to ultraviolet light such as sunlight or sun damage as a source for conversion of particular cell lines into cancer. The cancers you have to be concerned about if you want to be checked include basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma. Even though there may be some theoretical ideas around PRP and its role in causing or accelerating cancer, I have no concern about that. I think that the mechanism of cancer has to do more with repeated exposure to something that converts cells through DNA damage into tumor cells.
PRP is derived from your own blood, and to go further into the details of how we manage hair loss, I have no reservations with using PRP anywhere else in the body, including the scalp. I also want to give you some guidance on the role of PRP in hair loss. You have to understand that hair loss has to be managed individually. We have been doing this particular treatment Hair Regeneration for the past 7 years, and we have been treating patients from all over the world. Hair loss is expressed in different ways for different people, but there is one common reality - hair loss is progressive. When I look at people, I think of where they fall in that relative amount of progression. I look at patients in terms of age of onset, their current age when they come for consultation, the degree of hair loss, then make a determination on the relative aggressiveness of that hair loss.
The physiologic effects of PRP alone in my experience has been a short-term stimulation of hair growth. It doesn’t necessarily stop the progression, but in a way, indirectly appears to because you start to get regrowth. The sustainability of that regrowth is variable. What I observed now that more people are offering PRP is patients are coming to me and relaying the general lack of experience of the doctor performing PRP injections for hair loss, and I can understand that. When you are doing something this relatively new, you still don’t understand exactly how it’s going to behave until you have enough clinical experience.
What we have done in our practice is something called Hair Regeneration. Hair Regeneration was developed from the observation that thinning hair became thicker when we used extracellular matrix with PRP at the time of hair transplant. Over the course or several years, I developed a system and protocol, and ultimately we’ve been able to manage and help people with both male and female pattern hair loss. When we do this treatment, we’re able to establish much longer term management of hair loss, which is a big distinction over PRP alone. A lot of people who go for PRP have to go every month, or every 3 months, and with no clear understanding on the horizon of continual treatment. What happens if you stop? With our system and what we’re doing for patients from all over the world, we have a lot of experience we can provide for our patients, a more accurate prognosis, and a proper approach that is typically one injection, then we follow our patients for 5 years and see them every 3-6 months. In certain patients, we do a booster treatment in 15-18 months, depending on their particular category of hair loss.
In terms of safety, you can put your mind at ease that it is a safe modality and it should not cause you to develop a malignancy. I would recommend you learn more about PRP, your doctor’s experience with PRP, and also learn about Hair Regeneration with the concept of using PRP with extracellular matrix to manage your specific type of hair loss. I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck, and thank you for your question.

Results are very promising for PRP SC for the scalp. All treatments have risks, so a thorough knowledge of these is an important part of any treatment. Best, Dr. KaramanoukianLos Angeles

Since you are using your plasma and platelets with associated growth factors, you are not introducing any unknown stimulant to yourself.  PRP is a biologic produced by you and mapped to your own DNA.In good health,Ellen Mahony, MD