A new drug has been found which restored the hair of three patients within five months. Scientists think they may have discovered a cure for the autoimmune disease alopecia areata.
Alopecia areata is particularly identified with bald patches rather than complete baldness. Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) identified the immune cells responsible for destroying hair follicles in people with alopecia areata. Initial results were reported from an ongoing clinical trial of an FDA approved drug which has produced complete re-growth of hair in patients with moderate to severe alopecia areata: Three participants experienced total regrowth withing five month of the start of the treatment.
“We’ve only begun testing the drug in patients, but if the drug continues to be successful and safe, it will have a dramatic positive impact on the lives of people with this disease,” said Raphael Clynes, who led the research, along with Angela M Christiano, professor in the Departments of Dermatology and of Genetics and Development at CUMC. The disease can occur at any age and affects men and women equally. Hair loss in alopecia areata occurs when cells from the immune system confuse the hair follicles as foreign bodies and starts attacking them . This causes the hair in that region to fall off and enter a dormant state. Initially, in the study mice were used. The study suggests that a danger signal in the hair follicles of patients attracts the immune cells to the follicle and fuels an attack. The study used the mice to trace the danger signal backwards to identify the T-cells responsible for attacking the follicles. Further investigation revealed how the T-cells were instructed to attack and identified a pathway that the new class of drug called, JAK inhibitors could target. The two JAK inhibitors tested by the researchers were ruxolitinib and tofacitnib. These drugs blocked these pathways and managed to stop the attack on the hair follicles.
These effects seem to be quite promising, for a disease which could be devastating, especially for young people. If the drugs work and have no problematic short term or long term side effects, this seems to be a great breakthrough in drug therapy. Not just because of the apparent recovery, but also because of the identification of the pathways with which the disease is linked, this may shed some further light on the etiology of the disease in general.