My Doctor Is Going To Clone My Hair

I met an internist friend today and he asked me whether or not I do hair cloning for my patients. Obviously my answer was no. He mentioned that Dr. X does offer cloning to his patients and in fact plans on doing it for one of his current patients. My comment is this: The field of hair transplant surgery is a buyer beware market; just like any other fields in cosmetic surgery.

I have heard many doctors calling themselves a pioneer on this and that technique. If your doctor told you that he or she is the inventor of some popular method, make sure to ask for a published article from him or her on the topic in a peer reviewed medical journal. In medicine, we don’t keep secrets. When any inventions are formulated they are presented in scientific meetings or published in peer reviewed journals.

Hair cloning (as it is being called by people) or hair multiplication has been studied extensively in America and Europe over the past few years. There are some reports on the success of culturing hair and making new hairs from one in animals and human. There are also claims that phase 3 of clinical trials has started, but we do not know much about the success of this procedure since we don’t have any published articles as of yet. We don’t know anything about the possibility of mass production of hair through hair multiplication nor its feasibility and safety on human.

It is very likely that hair multiplication will be available in the future, but as of now we can not make any comments on the timing and quality of it.