Efficacy comparison of monotherapies and combination therapies for androgenetic alopecia: A Bayesian networkmeta‐analysis

Even though a variety of treatments for androgenetic alopecia (AGA) currently have been using in clinical, satisfactory therapeutic methods are still lacking. We aimed to compare and rank these treatments for AGA according to their differences in efficacy via Bayesian network meta-analysis, suggesting the optimal therapy for clinical utility to refer. A systematic search of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library database was performed and we included eligible randomized controlled trials. We compared differences in treatment effects of monotherapies and combination therapies using the Bayesian network model. The average difference in alteration from baseline of hair density and hair diameter, and variation value (mean ± SD) between the pre- and post-intervention was selected for main outcome measure and secondary outcome measure. Total 49 RCTs involving 3133 patients and six interventions were included. Regardless of based on hair density or hair diameter, topical/systemic combined with adjunctive therapeutics had the best treatment efficacy among all interventions (MD: 40.11; 95% CrI 25.65–54.59), followed by topical combined with systemic medical therapeutics (MD: 36.41; 95% CrI 17.54–55.24). In addition, in terms of hair density, treatment efficacy had significant difference sequentially among topical medical therapeutics (MD: 22.15; 95% CrI 12.88–31.42), systemic medical therapeutics (MD: 19.91; 95% CrI 6.504–33.22), and adjunctive therapeutics (MD: 18.60; 95% CrI 8.020–29.10) compared to placebo. In recent years, combination therapies are showing significant promise as potential therapies. Taken together with the outcomes of this study, despite the specific mechanism of the effect of combination therapies was not clear and further studies are needed, it may be the best treatment for AGA.