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Has anyone had a positive effect with Topical Finasteride ?

V

Vento

valued member
I'm thinking of giving topical finasteride a go. Has anyone used this with a positive effect ?
 
F

ford

member
I`m waiting to see results - its not available in the US right now, Hasson & Wong will be updating soon.



What Is Topical Finasteride?
Over the past few years the drug Finasteride has €“ in the public domain at least €“ acquired a reputation for having a high incidence of sexual side effects. This combined with the emergence of €œPost Finasteride Syndrome € has resulted in a marked hesitation on the part of many patients to even try this treatment as part of a regimen for treatment of male pattern hair loss (MPH).

5 years ago approximately 50-60% of patients coming to our office were already taking finasteride. Over our last 500 virtual consultations only 18% of patients reported using Finasteride.

While their is little question of how effective Finasteride is in treating male pattern hair loss , it has become clear that fewer patients are willing to take the risk of declining sexual functioning.

An obvious question has been whether the drug can simply applied topically to the scalp to avoid side effect issues?

Finasteride is a lipophylic drug and can be readily absorbed through the scalp when compounded with regular solvents and/or penetration enhancers.

The problem here is not its effectiveness , but the fact that there is nothing to stop the drug from moving from the scalp into the circulation and going €œsystemic €. While the incidence of side effects is lower than with the oral route of administration , there is no question that they may still occur.

Novel, high tech methods of transcutaneous drug delivery have been examined to see if we can simply €œlock € the drug into the scalp and avoid systemic absorption.

For the past few years I have been researching this option. I have joined with a pharmacological company (specializing in transcutaneous drug delivery systems) and the University of Milan, Italy in trying to produce such a topical preparation.

We have produced a liposomal gel containing silicone particles which €œanchor € the liposomes at the skin level. This prevents most of the drug from moving further into the tissue.

Our current preparation ,which we have been supplying to a group of test patients in Italy is soon to be available worldwide. The effectiveness appears to be equal to oral Finasteride but serum levels are 1/18th that of the oral route. We have had no reports of any sexual side effects in any of the test group (+/- 100 patients). Many of these patients have been on the oral form and had to quit on account of side effects.

This preparation is not FDA approved. It has not been through the FDA approval process which takes years and costs hundreds of millions. You have to have your own physician fill out a prescription for the preparation (see below) and the gel will be individually prepared for you.

While this preparation may not be perfect it should enable patients to halt the progression of MPH effectively, with very little chance of any unwanted side effects. This will be the cornerstone of treatment for MPH.




For those individuals who have been looking for a safer way to take finasteride, a topical form is now available.

This is the prescription that you should present to your physician to be filled out . A prescription should last for 3 months and includes refills to cover you for a year .


For some individuals there may be a concern that this formulation has not undergone the rigorous testing of a clinical trial, and is not FDA approved. This point is well known and in the ideal scenario this would have been the case, however, this is not a new drug in any way, only the method of application and delivery system is different. It would be incredibly surprising if there were any new adverse effects €“ especially since there will be much less systemic exposure.

The only issue of concern[/b] is the possibility of inadvertent exposure of a pregnant woman to the topical drug. There will be a warning to this on the drug labeling so as to avoid this risk.

This preparation is not intended to replace oral finasteride as a primary treatment. It was formulated for those patients that were unable to tolerate oral finasteride and wanted to effectively prevent further hair loss. It has since also been used by patients not prepared to risk taking oral finasteride.

It is inevitable that there will be new and better drugs to fight male pattern hair loss. The question is how long before these are available? For those people who need something effective now, and cannot wait, I think this formulation is as good as it is going to get!
 
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