how is female pattern hair loss diagnosed
female pattern hair loss can be challenging to diagnose the most common cause for hair loss in
both men and women is genetic pattern hair loss or androgenetic alopecia however hair loss in
women can be associated with hormonal factors such as polycystic ovarian syndrome or PCOS
as well as menopause other causes of hair loss such as alopecia areata scarring conditions
and traction alopecia are also often seen in women I'll discuss how I diagnose and manage
female pattern hair loss in my practice I'm Dr Amiya Prasad I'm a Diplomate of the American
Board of Cosmetic Surgery and a Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon
I've been practicing in New York City and Long Island for over 25 years
I performed hair transplant surgery throughout my career
a major problem with hair transplant surgery is that a high percentage of hair grafts
fail to grow after implantation the range of lost hair grafts can be 30 to over 90 percent
in an effort to address this problem in 2011 I was using a wound healing material called
extracellular matrix by ACell to help improve hair graft survival and donor area healing
this strategy appeared to work as a year after surgery there was improvement in graft survival
and donor area healing in addition there was significant improvement in hair growth
and hair density in the native hair where no transplant surgery was performed
this observation inspired me to pursue the development of a standalone non-surgical treatment
for male and female pattern hair loss which we now call TrichoStem Hair Regeneration
we treat male and female pattern hair loss as well as other hair loss conditions with typically one
to two treatment sessions about 18 months apart and having sustained benefits lasting for three
to five years or even longer although many years after I developed my system PRP or PRP+ACell
is being offered by many medical retailers unsurprisingly the treatments being conventionally
offered require frequent injections and have inconsistent and limited results so TrichoStem
Hair Regeneration from my perspective remains the benchmark for a hair regeneration treatment prior
to TrichoStem Hair Regeneration the treatment for female pattern hair loss was limited mostly to the
topical application of minoxidil as well as some anti-androgen drugs like spironolactone in the
course of seeing a wide range of female patients concerned about hair loss it became clear that I
had to develop a classification system for women experiencing hair loss that would allow me to
customize treatment plans specific to a diagnosis or more than one diagnosis in the same individual
further I had to develop sub-classifications and customize treatment plans accordingly
as far as women who come in for hair loss evaluation two common diagnoses we see are female
pattern hair loss and telogen effluvium female pattern hair loss is characterized by diffuse
reduction in hair density and miniaturization or thinning of the individual strands of hair
generally the progression of female pattern hair loss occurs almost imperceptibly
over years in an insidious way some women will have receding temples but generally female pattern
hair loss is a diffuse thinning process is often times a widening of the hair part and is described
in the medical literature as a Christmas tree pattern in contrast the condition called telogen
effluvium is characterized by significant hair shedding often preceded by a stressful event
this condition is usually self-limited and not characterized by long-term or permanent
hair loss now hormonal issues related to pregnancy and poly and conditions such as polycystic ovarian
syndrome or PCOS can affect hair growth we also see a lot of women who have traction alopecia
caused by the constant tension on their hair follicles from tight hairstyles such as ponytails
and braids in the African-American population we see patients who have a condition called central
centrifugal cicatricial alopecia or CCCA this is a type of scarring alopecia characterized by
central hair thinning which expands and widens over time as I mentioned earlier you can have
more than one of these diagnoses if there's a question about a diagnosis
in addition to clinical examination I will perform a scalp biopsy for microscopic evaluation
a decrease in estrogen production is generally considered a contributing factor in female
pattern hair loss in postmenopausal women so estrogen supplementation may be considered
in addition to other treatments to stimulate hair growth such as TrichoStem Hair Regeneration
as I discussed earlier we treat a lot of women with female pattern hair loss and have over 99
success in helping our female pattern hair loss patients see visible improvement in hair thickness
and density resulting in improvement in scalp coverage one of the greatest challenges to helping
women with hair loss is increasing awareness of treatment options many of my patients inform me
that their hairdressers are delighted by seeing the results of TrichoStem Hair Regeneration with
their own eyes and they're excited to help their other clients learn more about options to treat
female pattern hair loss I hope you found this information helpful thank you for your question