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 Dr. Lee is the founder and owner of Regrowth LLC, a company based in Los Angeles and dedicated to the treatment of hair loss. He has been developing innovative products and treating hair loss sufferers for the past 16 years. Dr. Lee is the creator of the Xandrox line of hair loss treatments.
Important Note: Due a busy schedule, Dr. Lee cannot answer any new questions at this time; however, he will be providing high quality answers to questions he receives from his own practice exclusively to Morphollica.com regularly
anonymous
2005-12-03
.025% Retinoic Acid Importance for Minoxidil
How important is it that minoxidil solutions have exactly a 0.025%
It’s not It’s not at all important. As with all biological responses, the pharmacological action of retinoic acid and of topical minoxidil will differ among patients. A plot of the absorption or of the biochemical reactions in the scalp versus the number of patients in the study would result in the usual bell curve configuration, confirming that the dosage that works best for one patient doesn’t necessarily work well for another. The differences in patient response is the reason that Retin-A (retinoic acid) is compounded in varying concentrations (0.025%, 0.05% and 0.10%) and in different bases (gel, liquid and cream). Another example of varying effective dosages that you might be familiar with would be Propecia, the 1mg tablet of finasteride manufactured by Merck Co. At the 1995 American Association of Dermatology Meeting in New Orleans, results from a one year, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study with finasteride in the treatment of MPB were presented. Men taking oral finasteride (5 mg/day) had significantly increased hair counts and significantly improved clinical change from baseline as assessed by multiple parameters. At the same meeting, results from a dose-range-finding study were presented, evaluating finasteride at doses of 0.01, 0.05, 0.2, 1 and 5 mg/day. A six-week trial measured concentrations of scalp skin and serum dihydrotestosterone. Surprisingly, other than the group taking 0.01 mg/day, no significant differences between the doses were seen. The 1mg finasteride tablet was decided upon because that dosage included the most number of patients that would benefit from its use in treating MPB, but there’s nothing magical about taking exactly 1mg finasteride daily to treat MPB.
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