How a revolutionary new injection grew back my hair after I’d tried every hair-loss treatment and was even considering a transplant

When Lindsey Swift was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, she knew that the treatment might mean she could lose her long blonde hair. But she didn’t expect that four years later, she would still be waiting for it to grow back. 

‘I’d been told it might come back grey or curly or look different,’ says Lindsey, 51, an aesthetic nurse from Leeds.

Knowing she was likely to lose her hair, she had it shaved off for charity before she began her cancer treatment – surgery, followed by six cycles of chemotherapy and 15 rounds of radiotherapy.

‘But when my hair started coming back two months after finishing all my treatment, it did not grow back to my original hairline,’ she says.

‘It was also much thinner around the crown. I looked like some men do when they have a really receding hairline. It was devastating.

‘I totally lost my confidence and wouldn’t go out as much. I no longer felt very feminine. I also avoided getting my hair wet in public as my baldness at the front then looked even worse.’

To start with, Lindsey ‘just hoped it would grow back’, covering it up with head scarves and wigs, but as the months passed, she tried everything she could think of to encourage her hair to grow.

This included spraying it daily with well-established hair-loss treatments such as minoxidil, which stimulates blood flow to the hair follicle [the living part under the skin which produces hair]. She also tried less conventional treatments, such as massaging rosemary oil into her scalp, which she had seen on social media.

‘It was supposed to stimulate blood flow, but it didn’t work and just left me with greasy hair,’ she recalls.

‘I was getting more desperate. I’d spent about £2,000 on my wig – which was very good – although I was constantly worried it wasn’t straight.

‘By the spring of 2020, the hair was still not growing at the front properly and I was left with this little tuft there.’

When Lindsey married partner Neil, 56, in September 2021, ‘I wore a flower crown with hair pieces clipped in to cover the bald patches,’ she says. ‘I insisted no photos were taken which showed the top of my head.’

It was at this point she considered a hair transplant. ‘I had a consultation – it would have cost £5,400, but it seemed like my only option,’ she says.

Then through a colleague, Lindsey heard about a novel treatment of injecting tiny, naturally occurring particles called exosomes, which are packed with growth factors and other ‘bioactive’ compounds. These are thought to essentially jump-start inactive hair follicles, promoting regrowth.

Lindsey is adamant that the treatment has worked and has made her feel back to her old self again.

Exosomes are released by virtually every cell in the human body and carry a ‘cargo’ of genetic material – including proteins, fats, enzymes and growth factors – which help with repair and regeneration.

The theory behind their use as a therapy is that they can prompt nearby cells to grow and work again.

Exosome therapy has interested scientists for about two decades as a way to help with wound healing, for example, but has only recently been investigated as a treatment for hair loss.

‘Exosomes are a bit like tiny bubbles containing biological messages that provide signals from one cell to another, which allows them to communicate,’ explains Dr David Ansell, an assistant professor working at the Centre for Skin Sciences at the University of Bradford.

‘The exosomes that scientists are most interested in are the ones produced by stem cells [which have the potential to develop into many different types of cells in the body] because they are most likely to provide the information needed for other cells to grow.

‘Many scientists believe that exosomes from stem cells might be able to stimulate repair of tissue and organs – but this technology is still in the research stages, and we are likely many years from it being available as a therapy for patients.’

However, early studies – including one conducted in 2023 at a Wuhan hospital in China – suggest it may help heal wounds.

‘The suggestion that exosomes might be used to regrow hair is a more recent idea and has come about in the past five years,’ adds Dr Ansell, who has a research interest in hair disease and wound healing.

Hair loss occurs when the growing cycle of hair is disrupted – this can occur for many reasons, including stress, age, poor nutrition or, as in Lindsey’s case, chemotherapy.

During treatment, chemotherapy targets rapidly growing cells, which include hair follicles, causing hair to fall out.

‘There are many reasons why people may experience hair loss, but often the reason is that far fewer of the follicles are in the active state,’ says Dr Ansell.

Yet while there’s some evidence to suggest exosomes can improve hair loss, experts say the jury is still out on whether it is truly effective.

One small human study, published in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery last November [2024], tested exosomes on 30 men with male pattern baldness – which affects the top and front of the head.

The team at Yeditepe University in Turkey used exosomes derived from human stem cells (extracted from foreskin), then injected into the men’s scalps. The study showed that the treatment was safe and that, after 12 weeks, the patients had an increased hair density.

And ‘animal models at a cellular level do seem to show that exosomes may have the ability to promote hair growth’, says Neil Harvey, chairman of the Institute of Trichologists.

‘Some people are very excited and make great claims, but for us it’s still really in its infancy and we haven’t quite got the sufficient definitive evidence,’ he adds, echoing the results of a review of existing studies published by researchers at the Cellular and Molecular Medicine Institute at Urmia in Iran: this concluded that exosomes are a ‘promising platform’ for potential treatment but the ‘various observed roles of exosomes remains far from complete’.

Not that this has stopped the aesthetics industry.

There are now many clinics in the UK already offering exosome treatment for hair loss.

The exosome treatment that Lindsey had, E50-H Exosomes for Hair, has been available here since 2023.

The exosomes that were injected into Lindsey’s scalp were derived from salmon testes. Using a human source may seem more straightforward, but there is the potential for transmission of disease as well as regulatory issues. But other private clinics offer treatments using other sources of exosomes, even taking them from plants.

Lindsey heard about exosome therapy in March 2023. ‘I thought I would give it a go as I had nothing to lose,’ she says.

‘It was expensive but cheaper than a transplant.’ Treatment sessions take around an hour and patients typically need four sessions, four weeks apart, at £100 each, costing £400 in total.

The treatment is done without anaesthetic using a microneedling device – either a pen, roller, or a stamp, with many tiny needles attached – to make tiny channels on the scalp. Next, the exosomes, which are in a serum, are fired into the channels using a gun-like device.

After the four initial treatments, patients are advised to have an additional maintenance session every four months.

Professor Richard Simcock, a clinical oncologist and chief medical officer at Macmillan Cancer Support, says that while exosome therapy ‘appears interesting and plausible’, he cautions that it hasn’t been tested specifically in people whose hair doesn’t grow back after cancer treatment – which isn’t well understood. ‘The therapy should be considered experimental’, he adds.

‘We also have no information about possible longer-term side-effects, which is important as an over-stimulation of cell growth might lead to the developing of cancer,’ adds Dr Ansell.

However, Lindsey is delighted with her new hair growth.

‘My hair has grown back as thick as it was before at the front,’ she says. She has been having annual mammogram check-ups, which have not reported any concerns.

‘Once I got my hair back, I felt the old Lindsey was back.’