Topical diphencyprone for alopecia areata: evaluation of 48 cases after 30 months' follow-up

Abstract

Forty-eight patients (23 male, 25 female) with severe alopecia areata were sensitized and treated with topical diphencyprone. Thirty-eight per cent of the subjects had good regrowth of hair at a mean follow-up period of 30.8 months. The presence of nail changes, a personal history of atopy and a long duration of alopecia had an adverse prognostic effect.

Topical immunotherapy of severe alopecia areata with diphenylcyclopropenone (DPCP): experience in an Iranian population

“…This results are less than those reported by Cotellessa et al [18] who observed a 48% complete success rate in a series of 52 patients, and those of Weise et al [21] and Van der Steen et al [22] who detected 40% and 50.4% complete re-growth in 124 and 139 patients, respectively (complete hair re-growth in the present study was 22.2%). In other reports, however, the percentage of success greatly varied from 4% to 85% [17,21,23-25]. The discrepancy of response rates may be due to the number of patients in clinical trials; the type, duration, and severity of the AA; and different methods of assessing clinical efficacy.…”

“…Among the investigated "prognostic factors" for the outcome of DPCP treatment, which have formerly been studied with variable results [21,25,28], only the presence of naevus simplex and nail changes were found to be of significance.…”

Alopecia areata

“…Less favorable responses were reported in patients with extensive hair loss 154,155 . Adverse prognostic features include the presence of nail abnormalities, an early onset of alopecia, a positive family history and failure to sensitize (which does occur but is rare in our experience) 153 .…”

Alopecia areata: A long term follow-up study of 191 patients

“…[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Most of the follow-up studies consider only severe degrees of AA and disregard milder disease, their treatment, and prognosis. 12 Familial history of autoimmune disease, personal history of atopy, severe hair loss, onset in childhood, and nail abnormalities have been associated with a poor prognosis. 13 Despite this information, it is challenging to predict the prognosis at disease onset, making it difficult to answer patients who ask about their long-term prognosis.…”