A CLINICO-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY ON ALOPECIA AREATA

BTVN Raju, M Sailaja Rani, Vindhya K, Suvarna G

Abstract


BACKGROUND: Alopecia areata [AA] is a non-scarring alopecia that is postulated to be a hair specific autoimmune
disease .1 Although most obvious on the scalp, any hair-bearing skin can be affected, and is frequently found to involve the
beard area .2 Various patterns of AA are patchy, ophiasis, sisaphio, reticulate, diffuse , subtotal , alopecia totalis and alopecia universalis . 3
Alopecia totalis is complete loss of terminal hair on the scalp .2 Alopecia universalis is total loss of all terminal hair on the scalp and body
.2Ophiasis is a band-like pattern of hair loss at the periphery of the scalp .2 Sisaphio means inverse ophiasis . AA is a chronic , organ specific
autoimmune disease, probably mediated by autoreactive T cells , which affects hair follicles and sometimes the nails .2
AIMS: Our present study was aimed to elucidate the epidemiology , aetiological factors and it's clinical patterns in the causation of alopecia
areata in patients attended to King George Hospital (KGH) affiliated to Andhra medical college , Visakhapatnam , Andhra pradesh ,South India .
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of sixty patients with alopecia areata attended to the out-patient department of KGH were enrolled for
the study . The demographic data was recorded and clinical evaluation was done . All alopecia areata cases encountered were included and
alopecia due to other causes were excluded .
RESULTS : In this study ,it was observed that patients belonging to the 10-30 years age group were affected more(74.99%) commonly (Table
1) . Females (56.67%) were affected more when compared to males (43.33%) (Table2). The occupational incidence of alopecia areata was
observed more in students(49.99%) followed by house wives(29.99%) (Table3) and association with other conditions were noted in limited
number of patients (Table 4). Among the various clinical patterns of alopecia areata , patchy pattern was observed in high(84.99%) number of
patients (Table-5) .
CONCLUSION: In this part (Visakhapatnam) of the country alopecia areata is very common in females and mostly observed in students and
house wives .


Keywords


Alopecia areata(AA), autoimmune, scalp, students, females, patchy .

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References


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