Arthritis Drug Reverses Alopecia Universalis in Hairless Man

There is currently no cure or long-term treatment for alopecia universalis--a disease that left a 25-year-old subject without hair on his head, including eyebrows and eyelashes. Yet a novel treatment by doctors at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., that involved an arthritis drug helped the young patient grow back the hair he never had.

"The results are exactly what we hoped for," said Brett A. King, M.D., assistant professor of dermatology at Yale University School of Medicine and senior author of a paper, published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. "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."

Before treatment, the patient had been diagnosed with both alopecia universalis and plaque psoriasis, a condition characterized by scaly red patches of skin. Researchers referred him to Yale Dermatology for treatment of the psoriasis in order to deal with symptoms of the disease, according to a news release.

Researchers said they believed that both could potentially be addressed simultaneously using an existing FDA-approved drug for rheumatoid arthritis known as tofacitinib citrate. The drug had previously been used to successfully treat psoriasis in humans and was found to reverse a less extreme form of alopecia in mice.

The patient was put on the drug for two months at 10 mg per day. His psoriasis showed some improvement and he was able to grow the first scalp and facial hair that he'd seen in seven years. Following three months of the therapy at 15 mg per day, he had completely regrown scalp hair and clearly had visible eyebrows, eyelashes and facial hair, armpit hair and hair in other areas, as well.

Researchers note that as tofacitinib was mildly effective in this patient's case by turning off the immune system's attack on hair follicles that's prompted by alopecia universalis, the drug may not be so successful for other cases.