A man who lost all the hair in his body due to a condition called alopecia universalis regrew the hair on his head after taking a drug known as tofacitinib citrate that is intended for rheumatoid arthritis, the Yale University reveals.
The man also has regrown eyelashes, eyebrows, hair on the face and armpit, among others.
“The results are exactly what we hoped for,” Dr. Brett A. King, senior author of the study published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, says in a statement.
Alopecia universalis has no long-term cure yet, leaving everyone with the condition bare of any hair in the body.
The 25-year-old man’s case is said to be the first to have reached its targeted successful treatment.
“This is a huge step forward in the treatment of patients with this condition. While it’s one case, we anticipated the successful treatment of this man based on our current understanding of the disease and the drug. We believe the same results will be duplicated in other patients, and we plan to try,” says King, who is also dermatology assistant professor at the School of Medicine of said university.
Aside from alopecia universalis, the patient is also diagnosed with plaque psoriasis, another condition that turns skin into scaly red. Prior to the treatment, the remaining hair on his body was found within the head area where psoriasis plaques persist. He was referred for psoriasis treatment at the Yale Dermatology.
The patient initially took the drug for two months with a daily dosage of 10 mg, and his psoriasis exhibited some improvements with his facial hair and scalp growing after seven years. Boosting the daily dosage to 15 mg taken for three months, the patient regrew his scalp hair completely, along with his eyelashes, eyebrows, armpit and facial hair, among others, becoming more visible.
King explains that tofacitinib turns off the attack of the immune system on the hair follicles and then triggers hair regrowth in patients with alopecia universalis.
The other good side is, there are no abnormalities in the lab tests neither are side effects, says Dr. Brittany G. Craiglow, study’s co-author.
There is possibility that both diseases of the skin might be simultaneously addressed with the use of tofacitinib citrate, which is a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Said drug was used in the past, successfully curing psoriasis in humans and reversing the less extreme alopecia areata in mice.
King says that while alopecia universalis does not have good alternatives for a long-term cure, the results of their tests suggest the drug might work. It might also work in some psoriasis cases. He mentioned the work of Angela Christiano, a scientist from Columbia University, as his inspiration for taking tofacitinib as treatment for psoriasis and alopecia universalis. Christiano has previously proven that the drug, plus a related medicine, can reverse the alopecia areata condition in mice.
“This case highlights the interplay between advances in science and the treatment of disease and it provides a compelling example of the ways in which an increasingly complex understanding of medicine, combined with ingenuity in treatment, benefits patients,” says King.
Currently, King submitted a proposal to have a clinical test of the cream form tofacitinib as alopecia areata treatment.
The study [pdf], Killing Two Birds with One Stone: Oral Tofacitinib Reverses Alopecia Universalis in a Patient with Plaque Psoriasis, was published online by the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
