New Study Shows Arthritis Drug May Combat Disfiguring Hair Loss

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Alopecia can cause disfiguring hair loss, but this drug offers hope. (Photo: Gallery Stock)

Alopecia areata is having a moment in the medical community, even if you’ve never heard of this condition — yet. More and more information is coming out about the disfiguring autoimmune disease, which causes patchy or total hair loss all over the body, including areas like the eyebrows and lashes. And new study from Yale and Stanford researchers shows that a rheumatoid arthritis drug may be the answer for hair regrowth.

According to Brett King, MD, an assistant professor of dermatology at Yale School of Medicine, there were “snippets of scientific results in the medical literature” indicating that the arthritis drug Tofacitinib may interrupt the signals driving hair loss in alopecia areata.

“Those tiny bits of data, including in mice, made me think to use the rheumatoid arthritis drug in a person with the disease, and it worked extraordinarily well,” King tells Yahoo Beauty. In fact, in June 2014, his team published the first case of complete hair regrowth across the scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows, face, and body in a patient using the drug.

Related: You Won’t Believe How Many Women Are Losing Their Hair

In the current study, King and researchers administered the drug to 66 patients at Yale and Stanford. Each took the drug for three months, and hair growth was evaluated. Most of the patients were completely bald before they started the trial, but almost two-thirds of patients showed hair growth during the study, and close to a third of patients recovered more than 50 percent of the hair they were missing before they began treatments.

The results of this study are very promising for alopecia areata, a condition that currently has less-than-effective treatment options. “This is an enormous step forward, both because alopecia areata is the second most common cause of hair loss and because there is a suggestion recently in the basic science literature that the class of medications that the drug belongs to, JAK inhibitors, may influence normal hair follicle development,” King says. “If this is indeed the case, then there are potential benefits for the most common form of hair loss.”

King says his team’s next steps is to see what happens when the drug is taken over longer periods of time, and if patients will regrow all of their hair. Researchers also need to determine the drug’s impact in adolescents with some of the toughest cases of alopecia areata. “After all, severe hair loss during childhood is devastating, and can rob children of important years of development,” King explains.

Related: New Report Says Stress Can Cause Hair Loss in Men

Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, a professor of dermatology and immunology at Mount Sinai Hospital and vice chair of the Department of Dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine, has also taken a keen interest in this condition. “What’s unique about alopecia areata is that, when you look at the patches of hair loss, the scalp looks normal,” Guttman-Yassky tells Yahoo Beauty. “But studies show lots of inflammation.”

Guttman-Yassky and her team at Mount Sinai currently have the largest pool of ongoing alopecia areata trials in the country. She has been studying ways to encourage hair regrowth in patients with the autoimmune disease, like targeting the cytokines that tend to interfere with therapies.

Right now, there’s just not enough to help these patients. “Current treatments for alopecia areata include topical steroids, intralesional steroids, and contact sensitizers, which aren’t very effective,” she says. “Systemic treatments that are broad are not safe for long-term use. It’s a very poor treatment for adults and kids.”

Just yesterday, Mount Sinai hosted an event for alopecia areata. Guttman-Yassky says she’s excited to see the wave of interest and research for the condition that “carries a 1.7 percent lifetime prevalence” and is currently “not being discussed enough” in everyday circles. “It is very devastating, and there’s a lot of emotional distress involved,” she explains. “This is one condition in which I’m pushing for more awareness.”

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