Safety and efficacy of 2% topical minoxidil in the management of male pattern baldness in Chinese.

Topic 2% minoxidil solution has been proved to be effective for hair regrowth in 30-40% of male pattern baldness in the United States and Europe. There was no report concerning topical minoxidil in Chinese patients, therefore, we selected 40 patients to investigate the efficacy and safety from December 1988 to January 1989. Those selected patients were consistent with male pattern baldness without systemic disease, and had never used topical hair regrowth agents. Patients applied topical medication 1 ml twice daily and were examined at 1 month intervals. Thirty two patients completed 6 to 12 months (average 9.6 months) of the study, moderate hair growth was found in 22% while minimal growth in 59% of the studied patients. All patients noted their shedding decrease after the application of drugs for 1 to 3 months. Scalp dryness and mild scaling appeared in 2 patients, but were tolerable. Before and after the trial, all patients had a chest roentgenogram, EKG, complete blood counts, urinalysis and blood chemistry studies, and no apparent abnormality was found. The efficacy of 2% minoxidil solution application in our study was less than that in the United States. which might be because some patients did not follow the application order regularly and a more strict evaluation standard was adopted in our series. However, the safety of no systemic adverse effect and the potential of inhibiting progressive shedding of hair were valuable as a topical drug.