The drug for the treatment of arthritis helped to grow hair

Researchers at Yale University, working under the guidance of Dr. Brett A. King, for the first time managed to achieve positive results in the treatment of generalized alopecia, an autoimmune disease, due to which a 25–year-old patient has almost no hair left on the entire surface of the body.

In addition to generalized alopecia, the patient was diagnosed with another autoimmune disease – plaque psoriasis, which is characterized by the appearance of red flaky foci on the surface of the skin. A small amount of the patient's remaining hair was localized on psoriatic plaques on his head. Local use of corticosteroids was not accompanied by improvements.

Researchers have suggested that both diseases can be treated simultaneously with a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis – tofacitinib citrate. This drug has been successfully used to treat psoriasis in humans, and also in experiments on mice has demonstrated the possibility of restoring hair in focal alopecia – a milder form of autoimmune baldness.

Two months after the start of taking tofacitinib at a dose of 10 mg per day, the patient began to experience moderate improvements in psoriasis symptoms. In addition, for the first time in the last seven years, he had hair on his scalp and face. A subsequent increase in the dose to 15 mg per day for a month provided a significant restoration of the scalp and body. 8 months after the start of treatment, the patient had a complete restoration of the hairline.

The hair on the patient's head before treatment with tofacitinib
and two, five and eight months after the start of treatment.

Apparently, tofacitinib restores hair growth in generalized alopecia by suppressing the attack of the immune system on the hair follicles. This drug is effective only in some cases of psoriasis and in the described case it provided only a moderate improvement in symptoms.

The authors made a proposal to conduct a clinical study of the effectiveness of topical cream with tofacitinib for the treatment of focal alopecia.

Article by Brittany G. Craiglow et al. Killing two birds with one stone: oral tofacitinib reverses alopecia universalis in a patient with plaque psoriasis published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on materials from Yale University:
In hairless man, arthritis drug spurs hair growth – lots of it. 

23.06.2014