According to a study by Nagoya University and Fujita Medical University, "Minoxidil", which is also a treatment for androgenetic alopecia (AGA), is effective for congenital alopecia and curly hair, which is born with a small amount of hair and becomes curly. It turned out that there was.
Congenital hair loss and curly hair are mainly caused by mutations in the LIPH gene required to produce lysophosphatidic acid, which is necessary for hair growth and hair follicle differentiation.It is a rare hereditary disease, and there has been no effective treatment so far, and patients have only accepted hair loss / curly hair as one individuality or used a wig.
Minoxidil, on the other hand, was developed for the treatment of hypertension, but was later found to have a hair-growth effect and is now one of the leading therapeutic agents for AGA.In this study, the efficacy and safety of this minoxidil for congenital hypotrichosis / curly hair disease were evaluated in a specific clinical study.
From August 2016, a specific clinical study of 8% minoxidil lotion for external use was started in 5 cases including 8 children at Nagoya University Hospital.After treatment, hair improvement was observed in all 1 study participants, and minoxidil showed high efficacy, especially in 8 of them, where the hair area was 4% or more of the hair area.In addition, although the safety of external use of minoxidil in children has not been established, in this study, only mild side effects such as dry scalp, hirsutism, and inverted eyelashes were observed, and no serious side effects were observed.
It can be said that this study has increased the number of promising treatment options for congenital hypotrichosis / curly hair disease for which there has been no cure for a long time.This result is expected to greatly contribute to the future treatment of this disease.
Paper information:[JAMA Dermatology] Association of Topical Minoxidil With Autosomal Recessive Woolly Hair / Hypotrichosis Caused by LIPH Pathogenic Variants
