Therapeutic Effects of Growth Factor Cocktail Including Fibroblast Growth Factor 9 in Patients with Pattern Hair Loss / 대한피부과학회지

BACKGROUND: A growth factor cocktail (GFC) including fibroblast growth factor 9 (FGF9) in combination with microneedling is an effective and safe treatment for patients with androgenetic alopecia (AGA). However, there is a lack of studies evaluating its effects based on microneedle depth. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the effects of a GFC including FGF9 on hair growth in patients with AGA, and compare the differences in efficacy according to microneedle depth. METHODS: The study was performed on patients with AGA who were treated with topical GFC including FGF9 with microneedling once every 2 weeks for 3 months. The scalp was divided into right and left sides, and treated with GFC including FGF9 (right side) and normal saline (left side). The microneedle depth was 0.8 mm for both sides. A total of 22 patients (11 males and 11 females) were enrolled. GFC including FGF9 was topically applied with a microneedle medical device. Treatment efficacy was evaluated through phototrichogram and digital photograph analyses after 6 repeated treatments for 3 months. RESULTS: The phototrichogram images showed that 3 months of treatment with GFC including FGF9 with microneedling increased hair density (27.4±4.4/cm²) and diameter (2.7±2.7 µm); increases in hair density (5.7±4.4/cm²) and diameter (2.2±2.3 µm) were also seen in the region of the scalp that received normal saline. These results were statistically significant (p < 0.05). The treatment effect was not significantly different between microneedle depths of 0.8 mm (used in this study) and 0.5 mm (used in our previous study) in terms of both hair density and hair diameter. CONCLUSION: GFC including FGF9 with microneedling is an effective and safe treatment for patients with AGA. According to the results of this study and our previous report, we believe that microneedle depths of 0.5∼0.8 mm can sufficiently stimulate the scalp to increase drug-delivery.

Therapeutic Effects of Growth Factor Cocktail Treatment in Patients with Androgenetic Alopecia According to the Depth of Microneedle / 대한피부과학회지

BACKGROUND: Growth factor treatment in combination with microneedling in androgenetic alopecia (AGA) patients is safe and effective. However, there is a lack of studies examining the effect of treatment according to the depth of the microneedle. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to evaluate differences in efficacy according to the depth of microneedle. METHODS: This study was performed on 6 male and 5 female AGA patients who were treated with topical growth factor cocktail (GFC) with microneedling every 2 weeks for 3 months. The scalp was divided into right and left sides and treated with microneedle depths of 0.5 and 0.3 mm, respectively. GFC was topically applied using a microneedle medical device. Treatment efficacy was evaluated by phototrichogram and digital photograph analysis on 6 repeated treatments for 3 months. RESULTS: Phototrichogram of the 0.5- and 0.3-mm-treated sides of the scalp showed 19 and 12 cm2 increase in hair density and 2.6- and 1.8-µm increase in hair diameter, respectively. These results were statistically significant (p0.05). CONCLUSION: GFC treatment with microneedling is effective and safe and a microneedle depth of 0.5 mm appears to be more effective than that of 0.3 mm. More research is necessary to confirm these results and determine the most effective depth for microneedling by investigating various depths.

A New Approach to Find Orthologous Proteins Using Sequence and Protein-Protein Interaction Similarity

Developed proteome-scale ortholog and paralog prediction methods are mainly based on sequence similarity. However, it is known that even the closest BLAST hit often does not mean the closest neighbor. For this reason, we added conserved interaction information to find orthologs. We propose a genome-scale, automated ortholog prediction method, named OrthoInterBlast. The method is based on both sequence and interaction similarity. When we applied this method to fly and yeast, 17% of the ortholog candidates were different compared with the results of Inparanoid. By adding protein-protein interaction information, proteins that have low sequence similarity still can be selected as orthologs, which can not be easily detected by sequence homology alone.

Stage Migration of Gastric Cancer According to the Extent of Lymph Node Dissection

PURPOSE: In this study, the authors attempted to evaluate the stage migration phenomenon according to D1 lymphadectomy and D2 lymphadectomy in the same patients. METHODS: A retrospective study was performed in 300 consecutive patients with gastric cancer who had undergone curative resection with nodal yields of D2 or more from 1994 to 1997. The lymph node status was evaluated in two different extents. Group B included patients with whole harvested regional lymph nodes (D2<) while group A include patients with perigastric lymph nodes (D1). Each group was staged by the number of involved lymph nodes according to the UICC-TNM stage (5th), and by the ratio of involved to resected lymph nodes. Stage migration and the difference of 5YSR were observed between the two groups. RESULTS: In staging by the number of involved lymph nodes, 25 cases (8.3%) of group B were staged up. According to the status by the ratio of involved lymph nodes, 14 cases (4.6%) of group B were staged up and 28 (9.3%) were staged down. CONCLUSION: In the staging of gastric cancer, adequate lymph node dissection was essential for accurate lymph node staging. In the cases of limited lymph node dissection, some extent of stage migration was considered assessing in the prognosis.