An investigation of poor prognostic factors in patients with alopecia areata and their relatives

Abstract

Background and Design: Alopecia areata (AA) is characterized by non-ciatricial hair loss with exacerbations and remissions. Although its etiopathogenesis is not known, autoimmune factors have been suggested. Our aim was to make contribution to the epidemiological properties of AA in Turkey, and to determine the poor prognostic factors that affect the course of the disease. Materials and Methods: One hundred and thirty-four patients who applied to the dermatology and venereology outpatient clinic of Istanbul Medical Faculty were included in the study. The patients were retrospectively investigated in terms of age, gender, clinical type, the area affected by alopecia, severity of the disease, number of relapses, disease duration, age at disease onset, presence of nevus flammeus, nail involvement, history of emotional and/or physical stress, family history of AA, family and personal history of atopy. Results: Of the 134 patients, 79 (59 percent) were male, 55 (41 percent) were female and M/F ratio was 1.4/1. The clinical type was AA in 86.5%, alopecia totalis (AT) in 3.7% and alopecia universalis (AU) in 9.7% of the cases. The most common involvement was the scalp in both genders and 92.1% of them had patch pattern. Severe involvement was found to be significant in the female patients (p=0.029), in those with juvenile onset (p=0.001), and ≥1 year of disease duration (p=0.001) as well as in the presence of nevus flammeus (p=0.017) and nail involvement (p=0.015). A family history of AA was present in 27.6% of the cases and it was more common in the juvenile group (p=0.034). There was no association between the severity of the disease and atopy.