The effects of minoxidil, 1% pyrithione zinc and a combination of both on hair density: a randomized controlled trial.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Minoxidil, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as teenagers, adults and middle-aged adults, men only.

Two hundred healthy men between the ages of 18 and 49 years (inclusive) exhibiting Hamilton-Norwood type III vertex or type IV baldness were enrolled.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, single-blind, placebo-controlled and parallel-group.

Because people in this Minoxidil study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Only one side, usually the participants, was kept unaware of whether Minoxidil was given.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Minoxidil, giving a reference point.

The Minoxidil group and the comparison group ran side by side rather than switching.

These were based on photographs of the scalp using both midline and vertex views.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Alopecia, Analysis of Variance, Fiber Optic Technology, Hair, Hair Preparations, Minoxidil and Organometallic Compounds.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, single-blind and placebo-controlled study of Minoxidil.

Results are reported in around 7 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2003 (The British journal of dermatology), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.