The Potential Benefits of Low Dose Oral minoxidil for Lichen Planopilaris (LPP)

A New Study Highlights Benefits of Oral Minoxidil in 12 Female Patients.

Low dose oral minoxidil (LDOM) refers to the use of minoxidil at doses 0.25 to 5 mg for treating hair loss. LDOM is used for treating many hair loss conditions including androgenetic alopecia, alopecia areata, chronic telogen effluvium and some scarring alopecias.

Vano and colleagues in 2021 described the benefits of oral minoxidil in their 51 patients. 39 % of patients improved, 53 % stabilized and 8 % worsened. You can review this study in more detail in the link below:

Gallo et al 2022

Authors of a new study reported the benefits of oral minoxidil in 12 female patients with lichen planopilaris. The average daily dose of oral minoxidil was 0.5 mg taken at night before bedtime. Already after 3 months of therapy, an initial improvement in both the clinical and trichoscopic picture could be seen in all 12 patients. Further improvements occured at month 6 and 12.

None of the 12 patients discontinued therapy during follow-up, and no serious adverse events were recorded. Two patients (16.7%) showed mild hypertrichosis although this side effect did not require these patients to stop oral minoxidil.

Summary
This is another nice report of the benefits of oral minoxidil for treating LPP. We don’t have any data here on what proportion of patients had androgenetic alopecia and what proportion did not. We don’t know whether the 12 patients had active LPP or inactive LPP and similarly we don’t know what medication they used now or used in the past. This information is needed if we are to truly understand how oral minoxidil can be best used in our patients with scarring alopecia.

References

Giuseppe Gallo et al. Low-dose oral minoxidil in female patients with lichen planopilaris: Real-life experience. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2022 Aug 16.

Vañó-Galván S, Trindade de Carvalho L, Saceda-Corralo D, et al. Oral minoxidil improves background hair thickness in lichen planopilaris. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2021;84:1684–6.