Hair’s the thing: Eczema treatment gets growing
An unexpected side effect of a severe eczema treatment sparked hair growth in an alopecia patient who hadn’t grown hair in 11 years.
Physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital reported the surprising findings which resulted from the eczema treatment, dupilumab.
According to the report published in JAMA Dermatology, a 13-year-old patient with alopecia and eczema was treated with the drug and experienced significant hair growth for the first time since she was two years old. The patient took the drug to treat severe eczema -- not alopecia -- astonishing doctors and researchers.
“We were shocked,” said Dr. Maryanne Makredes Senna, senior author of the JAMA Dermatology report and MGH dermatology doctor. She said she immediately checked to see if the side effect had ever been reported before, “As far as we know, this is the first report of hair regrowth with dupilumab in a patient with any degree of alopecia areata,” said Senna.
Senna said the patient had been resistant to alopecia treatments and eczema treatments as well. The patient started to receive weekly injections of dupilumab, which had recently gotten FDA approval, and after six weeks noticed significant improvement in eczema symptoms along with the growth of fine white hairs on the scalp.
After seven months of treatment, the patient grew a significant amount of hair, which Senna attributes to the drug’s targeting of the immune system. Senna said right now, it is hard to know if the drug could work in other alopecia patients, but suspects that it could yield similar results. “We’ve submitted a proposal for a clinical trial using dupilumab in this patient population and hope to be able to investigate it further in the near future,” said Senna.
Aside from the physical effects of dupilumab, Senna said hair growth for the young patient was a “huge lift” emotionally.
“She was beaming ear to ear. It was awesome, she was thrilled. She had lived her whole life without hair on her head but the fact that she had hair coming in was amazing,” said Senna. She said the patient will continue taking the treatment as physicians will monitor the hair growth.