To Study Dermoscopic Findings in Alopecia Areata

Introduction: Alopecia areata is a common chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease that involves hair follicles, characterized by hair loss on the scalp and/or body without scarring. Clinically, the disease presents as smooth, patchy hair loss with various patterns - diffuse or reticulate alopecia, ophiasis, ophiasis inversus, alopecia totalis (loss of hair all the scalp), or alopecia universalis (loss of hair all over the body). Clinical diagnosis of AA is made based on typical pattern of hair loss and the presence of characteristic exclamation mark hair in microscopy. Invasive (punch biopsy) techniques are often required in some cases where the clinical diagnosis is not straight forward Biopsy shows peribulbar lymphocytic infiltrates in a “swarm of bee pattern” which is characteristic of the acute stage of the disease.

Dermoscopy is an imaging instrument that immensely magnifies surface features of skin lesions. It works on the principle of illumination and transillumination of skin with different light sources and studying it with a high magnification lens. Dry dermoscopy was done with heine delta 20 dermoscope which was followed by wet dermoscopy. Liquid paraffin was used as the immersion media. It is a noninvasive, repeatable, recordable bedside investigation.

Objective: To study dermoscopic findings in alopecia areata.

Materials and Methods: Study Design: Cross sectional study; Study Area: Skin Outpatient Department, Sree Balaji Medical College and Hospital; Study Population: All patients with hair loss, attending skin OPD, who are clinically diagnosed as Alopecia Areata; Study Method: Observational study; Sample Size: 30.

Results: Clinically, the disease presents as smooth, patchy hair loss with various patterns. Dermoscopy is useful for diagnosis of AA clinically by the presence of cadaverized hairs (black dots), circle hair, coudablity hair, exclamation mark hairs (tapering hairs), broken hairs, yellow dots and clustered short vellus hairs in the hair loss areas. The results wear tabulated.