The National Alopecia Areata Foundation (NAAF) is encouraged by the results of an 8-month course of treatment conducted by researchers at Yale University School of Medicine in which a 25-year-old male patient with alopecia areata universalis was able to regrow a full head of hair, along with eyebrows, eyelashes, and facial, armpit, and other hair when put on a regimen of tofacitinib citrate, an FDA-approved treatment for arthritis. The drug has also been successfully used in the treatment of psoriasis.
While we remain hopeful, we wish to remind the alopecia areata community this is a preliminary study with the effects of the drug studied on only one individual. It should be considered preliminary and not validated at this point, and remains to be further studied in clinical trials.
A clinical trial with this drug will be starting at Columbia University in the fall of 2014.
