Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) with Dr Dmitri Wall, Dermatologist at Hair Restoration Blackrock HRBR
Q. Is hair transplantation suitable for patients with Alopecia Areata?
Video transcript:
You typically wouldn’t consider hair transplantation for somebody who’s had alopecia areata unless it’s been a very, very long-standing patch of alopecia areata. You always think with alopecia areata that it can regrow over time. The longest I’ve ever seen somebody who’s had a patch of alopecia areata and then it’s regrown is 44 years, which is a very long time. We typically think that once it gets beyond about 8 to 10 years, you start to enter a realm where it’s more difficult to anticipate that somebody’s hair will regrow, even with the new emerging treatments. The other side of that is whether it’s still okay to have transplantation for different types of hair loss, like classic male pattern hair loss in someone who also has alopecia areata. Now, obviously it depends on the extent to which you have alopecia areata, but it’s not necessarily a contraindication to having transplantation. And there’s a number of people who we’ve treated very successfully with transplantation, even though they have had a low grade alopecia areata in the background.